RABAT, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani said Wednesday that Morocco is on track to end the tuberculosis epidemic before 2030, Morocco's MAP news agency reported.
Speaking at a high-level meeting on the fight against tuberculosis at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York, El Othmani said that Morocco is committed to definitively ending the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030, as underlined in the UN's objectives.
Othmani noted that Morocco has made significant progress in this program, with a 88-percent increase in early diagnosis rate, whereas the world average is only 61 percent, adding that the tuberculosis treatment success rate has increased by 87 percent.
The number of tuberculosis cases in Morocco decreased by 30 percent, while the mortality rate fell by 63 percent between 1990 and 2016, the reported quoted the prime minister as saying, adding that the rate of drug-resistant tuberculosis does not exceed one percent, while it is four percent worldwide.
He recalled that between 2016 and 2017, the mortality rate due to tuberculosis has decreased by 12 percent compared with three percent worldwide, it added.
Othmani noted that in order to eliminate this epidemic, it is necessary to adopt a comprehensive and participatory approach that puts health at the center of all policies, in line with the Moscow Ministerial Declaration to end tuberculosis, it said.
