AMMAN - Over one hundred tuberculosis (TB) cases have been registered among Indonesian foreign workers since the beginning of the year, spurring the Health Ministry to suspend accreditation of health centres in Indonesia.
Noting that 160 TB cases were registered among foreign domestic helpers since January, Khalid Abu Rumman, director of the ministry's respiratory disease department, said that some of the accredited health centres in Indonesia failed to carry out necessary medical checkups on labourers coming to Jordan.
"We accredited 27 centres last year to conduct medical tests for domestic helpers coming to work in Jordan, but most of them were not doing their jobs," Abu Rumman said in a press conference on Sunday, adding that a ministry delegation will visit Jakarta next month to select three new centres for accreditation.
Also yesterday, the ministry requested foreign workers to be tested for TB every six months instead of every year, to prevent the spread of the disease.
Last year, 337 Jordanians tested positive for the disease, which resulted in 45 deaths.
TB is a bacterial disease that attacks the lungs, as well as other parts of the body such as the kidneys, spine and brain. If not treated properly, it can be fatal.
TB spreads through the air by droplets expelled by people with the active disease when they cough, sneeze, speak or spit.
In order to encourage people to undergo regular checkups, the ministry last year developed a national strategy to combat TB, which aims to decrease the prevalence of the disease by 50 per cent in 2015 and eliminate it by 2025.
By Khetam Malkawi
© Jordan Times 2009
