Bhaktapur (Thimi), Mar. 31:A team of Nepalese journalists made an on a the spot tour of the National Tuberculosis Centre and the saarc Tuberculosis Centre organised by the Japanese Embassy with an objective of familarising the journalists with the various programmes and projects run under Japanese cooperation in Nepal.

The team included journalists, planners, health researchers and officials of Japanese Embassy.

Welcoming the team, advisor to the Tuberculosis Controls Project under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (jica)  Dr. K. Osuga said jica had been working in phases  in the tuberculosis control works of Nepal since 1987.

Dr. Osuga said the second project of jica will end in July adding that the jica has initiated the process of launching a new project to control chest and lung diseases.

At the programme senior chest specialist of the National Tuberclosis Centre Dr. Kashi Kant Jha  informed about the methods used in the treatment of tuberculosis.

Answering queries raised by the journalist, he said since the launching of the dots programme in 1996, the lives of 60,000 people have been saved in Nepal.

In 1962, Japanese doctor Noburu Iwamura had provided services to the rural public health and tuberculosis control works as a volunteer.

After his work in 1976, Japanese govenment launched the first phase tuberculosis control programme in Nepal from 1987 to 1994 through jica.

During the programme, jica build the National Tuberculosis Center and the Pokhara based regional tuberculosis center and provided tecnical know-how and equipment.

During the first phase of the project, the Japanese experts had trained 1700 health workers including 24 doctors of the national and regional tuberculosis centers.

Under the second phase programme, the dots method of treating tuberculosis launched who was incorporated in the national tuberculosis control programme.

The project has also been cooperating in the production of education-oriented materials for tuberculosis control, to coordinate other Japanese assisting agencies with hmg, supplying necessary medicines and materials to the centres, expanding the laboratories and microscopic centers and assisting in various training programmes.