Relationship between National TB program and prevalence of TB drug resistance in Algeria, 1965 to 2013

Abstract

The Algerian National TB program was first implemented in Algeria in 1965. Since 1965, the Ministry of Health has endorsed many instructions which have given important improvements in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) in the country.The government has actively participated in the fight against TB as expressed in its endorsement of many decisions to this end, such as the withdrawal of TB medications from the private pharmacies, the free-of-charge diagnostics and the treatment for TB patients until the completion of their treatment, and the creation of the National TB Laboratory, as well as many other tasks to control the TB epidemic in the whole country.According to this policy, the surveillance of TB drug resistance has been followed continuously since 1965 up to the present. The National TB Laboratory is a unique laboratory performing the DST for TB strains and is also able to conduct the national drug resistance surveys.The different steps will be presented of the development of the National TB program in Algeria between 1964 and 2014, and in the same way the variations of the prevalence rate of TB drug resistance to demonstrate that the drug resistance surveillance is an acceptable indicator of the performance of TB control program in the country.