By Kim Su-yon
Seoul City announced Monday that it will intensify medical assistance to those vulnerable to tuberculosis (TB), such as migrant workers and the homeless in efforts to prevent the highly fatal infectious disease.
The city said that migrant workers will be given a mobile free TB screening every third Sunday of each month at churches and foreign labor support centers from this month. Regular mobile screening will also be provided for those at social rehabilitation centers and welfare centers for the elderly and the disabled.
In particular, the city has been offering TB checkups to the homeless twice a year at two major clinics for the homeless near Seoul and Yeongdeungpo Stations and similar screening at the shelter and counseling center for the homeless also near the stations every six months.
Those with positive results in the TB test are immediately sent to Seoul City-run Seobuk Hospital with 234 beds. They will receive free treatment for six months.
Four other city-run hospitals ― Seoul Medical Center (40 beds), Seoul Metropolitan Dongbu Hospital (31 beds), Seoul Metropolitan Eunpyeong Hospital (50 beds) and Seoul Municipal Boramae Hospital (32 beds)―are also accepting such TB patients for similar treatment. Boramae Hospital has started the medical service for the needy TP patients this month.
Patients, who are suffering from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) as they fail to receive treatment in the earlier TB stage, have been given financial support since 2009, the first of its kind in the nation. As of June 30, a total of 220 MDR-TB patients are benefiting from the program.
A spokesman said that the city also plans to carry out joint research projects with the Asia Network for Major Cities 21(ANMC21) to control the deadly disease as soon as possible.
The number of deaths from tuberculosis continues to decline in the city as well as in the whole nation during the past five years, but about 35,000 people are still infected with the disease throughout the country every year, according to statistics released from the city government.
TB is the No. 1 infectious disease in both incidence and deaths in Korea, which is also ranked top in both rates among the 32 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
“The municipal government will make every effort to reduce the spread of tuberculosis and its death rate to the level of the OECD by screening and treating those most vulnerable to the disease,” said an official.
For more information, visit Seoul City's homepage, www.seoul.go.kr.
The writer is a Korea Times intern.
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