Koforidua, 24 June, GNA - Mrs Angela Quaye, the Eastern Regional Coordinator for Tuberculosis (TB) at the Disease Control Unit of the Ghana Health Service, has advised Ghanaians not to underrate Tuberculosis (TB), saying it is as deadly as HIV/AIDS.

Mrs Quaye was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Koforidua about the increasing rate of TB in the region.

She was unhappy over the increasing death rates in the region through TB, saying that the situation was very alarming.

"Most of the death cases during a death audit, appeared to have occurred because most people did not report to the hospital early and therefore died at home," she said.

She attributed the death cases to the long distance residents had to travel to health centres and that they also did not have information on the disease.

Mrs Quaye said the Ghana Health Service helped to organize health programmes to educate people in the various districts.

Some of the programmes organized, she said, were focus group discussions, working in collaboration with some NGOs for house to house education and the celebration of the World TB day.

Mrs Quaye said medicine for treating TB could not be found at the pharmacies and that affected persons should go to the hospital, when they continuously cough for two weeks, for testing and free treatment.