On the occasion of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day 2016, we at EPOS Health Management continue to do our part in the fight against this disease. Recently, we were pleased to assist the TB Control Program of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP) in Pakistan to inaugurate a state-of-the-art Biosafety Level III laboratory at Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar. The laboratory, financed by KfW Development Bank, serves the entire province which is home to 26 million people.

The fully equipped laboratory will make a significant contribution to KP’s efforts to diagnose and optimally treat up to 50,000 TB cases a year, as well as contribute to acheiving federal National TB Control targets. While providing high standards of staff safety, the laboratory is already facilitating the diagnosis work for normal and drug-resistant TB under negative-pressure conditions, providing a wide range of tests including GeneXpert testing, Drug Susceptibility Testing (DST), and handling of media cultures, all free of cost to the patients. 

An inauguration event last month was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Health of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as of the KfW Office in Islamabad, and the Project Director of the TB Control Programme of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, amongst others.