Kosovo continues to lead the region with number of Tuberculosis cases

Compared to the year 2000, by 2018, cases of tuberculosis have dropped by more than 100 percent.

The director of the Pulmology Clinic at QKUK, Rukije Mehmeti, in an interview for Economy Online, says that the most affected age with this type of illness is that of youth.

“This is an apparent declining disease, yet Kosovo takes first place in the region. If we look at some data from 2000 when we first began to have safer and accurate data, which was 1764 cases, and in 2018 the number of sufferers dropped to 700 cases. Which means it's reduced. Kosovo is also in the country that has a new population, and the most affected age is 15 to 34 years of age”, she says.

Pulmologist Mehmeti says the conditions for treating this disease are good. While acknowledging that during the last year, there has been a lack of adequate equipment.

He says that the disease is easier if patients are diagnosed over time.

It invites citizens to be careful and to do regular checks.

We have the conditions for the most diagnosed, now a year has not been worked on. But now we've got the new broncoscope. We've got an ultrasound for the lungs and I can say that there's a very good diagnostic potential now. The biggest disaster is that patients are being presented late, because we don't have a health culture in which patients should think of themselves. Very few are those who once a year do a detailed thorough check on where it is”, she says.

The director of Pulmology also gives some advice on how to protect yourself from this disease.

“Ajri as clean as possible for presenting various diseases is smaller. We think more about building buildings and bricks than in green spaces. As each of us sows from a tree, they will plant a million trees a year. This does not cost anyone much, but we would contribute a lot to air laundering throughout Kosovo”, she says.

Mehmeti says the clinic she runs needs professional staff, otherwise patients are forced to seek healing abroad.

For staff considering when I started working didn't probably need so much. But in developing medicine, there is a need for diagnostic treatment that means the need for staff is always necessary. We also need nurses for doctors. Every day we need space, for treatment of the sick who reduced the need for patients to go outside Kosovo for treatment”, he has said.

However, it says that there is a recent improvement of conditions in the country's health system.

It's the first time that something is being seen is tangible, that something is being worked out, but I can say medicine is sea without end and with magic can't fix it all, but it's important that the desire is that people who are willing to regulate health have started investments after that, and in the link the amounts have become big business”, she says.

We remember that tuberculosis is a bacterial infection caused by the Mycobacterium trabeculosis bacteria and spread from person to person through the airways.

It affects the patient's lungs primarily, but other parts of the body, such as glands, bones, and nervous systems, are sometimes affected.