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TB: OFFICIALS DOWNPLAY CONCERNS OF UKRAINE'S TB EPIDEMIC

AP Online, Kiev, Ukraine, Mar 24, 2004

KIEV - Ukrainian health officials on Wednesday declared the nation's tuberculosis epidemic under control, saying that four times fewer infections were recorded in 2003 than in the previous year.

As the country marked global TB Day, First Deputy Health Minister Olha Lapushenko attributed the positive change to accurate monitoring backed by a doubling of government funding since 2002 which has eased diagnosis and treatment.

But Lapushenko also noted that some 130 clinics across this ex-Soviet republic of 48 million people do not have sewers, so TB-infected waste enters the general wastewater system.

Volodymyr Zahorodniy, deputy health minister, also noted that 70 percent of the country's predominantly Soviet-era medical equipment needs to be replaced.

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Ukraine's post-Soviet economic meltdown has degraded the state-run health care system and contributed to this country having one of the world's fastest growing infection rates.

Officially, some 670,000 Ukrainians are infected with tuberculosis, but the International Red Cross estimates the real figure could be three times higher.

Last year, the Health Ministry received US$480,000 from the Global AIDS Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, while the World Bank signed an agreement for a US$60 million loan to help the cash-strapped government implement a comprehensive prevention, diagnosis and epidemic control program.

Meanwhile, the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement Wednesday that the spread of tuberculosis among prisoners in the former Soviet Union continued to be a major concern.

The ICRC said it was involved in programs in the ex-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, but it warned that many prisoners were released before completing their treatment, bringing "the disease back with them into society." It called for better cooperation between authorities inside the prison and those coordinating the national TB programs.

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