Today as we celebrate the World Tuberculosis Day, Uganda has run out of drugs and health officials have warned that the shortage could double cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

The shortage, which has persisted for months, has reached alarming levels with Uganda borrowing drugs from Kenya.

This is a great setback in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) because Uganda still has the highest default rate of any high-burden country. USAID statistics rank Uganda 15th on the list of 22 high-burden TB countries in the world.

In 2006, the country had more than 106,000 new TB cases, with an estimated incidence rate of 355 per 100,000 people.

Also Uganda still has both a low reporting level and low adherence to treatment coupled with poor access to health services. According to the World Health Organisation, the situation is further complicated by the fact that around 16 percent of new TB patients are HIV-positive.

According to local medical reports in Gulu the number of TB cases rose from 1,369 in 2007 to 1,936 in 2008, bringing the number of TB patients in Gulu alone to over 3,000.

If not attended to, multi-drug resistance TB could greatly strain the already over-burdened medical system. It is crucial that the Government steps up the fight against TB with increased and more sustained financing.

Unless the Government quickly acquires the first line treatment which costs sh50,000 for each patient for eight months, TB drug resistance might go higher forcing the country to spend even more by buying the alternative second line treatment which costs thousands of dollars.

There is also need for the Government and other stakeholders to invest in local research on the multi-drug resistant TB so that the right line of drugs is procured.

To stop TB, there is need to make the fight against TB a community affair by investing in sensitising and mobilising the communities and empowering the local health providers in monitoring cases and patients who are on treatment.