Treating TB patients (Photo: VNA) Accordingly, from 00:00 on March 22 to 24:00 on May 21, mobileservice subscribers can text TB to 1402 to contribute 20,000 VND (0.87 USD) tothe fund.
Each message will provide funds to help TB patients overcomethe disease and reduce infection risks in the community.
Ending TB would mean saving 11,000 lives each year and easethe worry of infection for hundreds of thousands of people.
At present, more than 20,000 TB patients in Vietnam do nothave health insurance cards yet. For health insurance card holders from poor and near-poor households, treatment fees are also a problem.
In 2020, Vietnam ranked 11th among the 30 countries thataccount for nearly 90 percent of the world’s TB burden. It is also one of themost common communicable diseases in the country.
Each year, it is estimated that 170,000 people become sickfrom TB in Vietnam, but only around 100,000 are accounted for in the NationalTB system, leaving around 50,000 community TB cases undiagnosed, and theremaining 20,000 diagnosed but not reported.
As of late December 2020, the PASTB, set up on March 16,2018, had supported 2,560 patients, with the total amount of over 5.7 billionVND (247,100 USD)./.
VNA
