Switzerland sends medical equipment to Luhansk region hit by tuberculosis outbreak

11:10, 21.10.2017 1 min read

The humanitarian aid department at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation has delivered $150,000 worth of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons has said.

The aid was delivered to Donbas as part of Switzerland's seventh humanitarian mission on October 18, 2017, the ministry said.

"In particular, a full set of medical equipment and necessary expendables (reagents) has been delivered to the Luhansk anti-tuberculosis hospital. The outbreak of tuberculosis and the risk of the disease spreading among people living both in Ukraine-controlled and breakaway territories remains a problem," the ministry said.

The new equipment will cut diagnosis time from two weeks to two days, thus preventing "poly-resistant tuberculosis" from spreading throughout the region and beyond, the ministry said.