The number of cases of tuberculosis has fallen more than three times compared to 22 years ago, which shows that Romania's approach to combating this disease has been correct, Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said on Monday at a conference dedicated to World Tuberculosis Day.
"The approach that Romania has had in the last 20 years in terms of fighting tuberculosis has been the right one. (...) At the beginning of the 2000s (...), in Romania we had tens of thousands of cases of tuberculosis, many, many deaths and cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis were beginning to appear. And within a few years, we managed then to change the trend, which had been increasing until 2003. After that, it slowly started to decrease and after 22 years, compared to 2002 or 2003, the number of TB cases has dropped three times. In general, a more than five-fold reduction in the number of cases of tuberculosis in children aged between zero and 14 years and a very significant reduction in the number of deaths," explained Alexandru Rafila.
On another matter, the minister drew attention to the challenge posed by a stagnation in the global downward trend in tuberculosis, with even a slight increase, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Scientific articles (...) document this direct relationship between what happened during the pandemic and the increase in cases of tuberculosis (...), on the one hand, and what is happening at the global level, where the lack of funding in various tuberculosis programs (...) can jeopardize certain areas, not Romania, but (...) international circulation is very intense," said Minister Rafila.
In his turn, the manager of the Institute of Pneumophysiology Marius Nasta, Gheorghe Popescu, said that the tuberculosis wards of the institution will be moved to the new Zerlendi Hospital, which will have 97 beds, and should be completed by the end of June 2026, but expressed the hope that this deadline will be by March 2026, given the progress of works.
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