Health official seeks community support to eliminate tuberculosis

Our Correspondent
Kohima, June 17 (EMN): The state’s Health department has sought community support to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025 in accordance with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s National Strategic Plan.

State Programme Officer (SPO) National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP), Dr. Tiasunep Pongener said at a sensitisation programme organised for media professionals at IDSP Conference Hall in Kohima that the world is still fighting against TB, which was discovered over a century ago, but is a social disease and no more a medical disease today.

He added that the disease is still a burden in most of the developing and under-developed countries, and prevalent among lower socio-economic strata of population.

The official informed that the government of India has set up an ambition target to eliminate TB by 2025, five years ahead of World Health Organisation’s global target under Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030. He added that it is possible to achieve the target through concerted efforts.

Informing that the Union Health ministry had, in its latest directive, sought the states to eliminate the disease through ‘Community support to TB patients’, Dr. Pongener said such a strategy is necessary despite having the best medicines for treatment and equipment for diagnostic like TrueNat and  Cartridge Based Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (CBNAAT).

He urged the public — individuals, society, NGOs, faith-based organizations, etc. – to help fight TB in the form of counseling, moral support and nutrition.

Meanwhile, Dr. Collins Zekotso Sono, WHO Consultant (NTEP) Nagaland, reminded that the Centre had launched TB-Free India campaign in 2018, calling for a social movement focused on patient-centric and holistic care approach driven by integrated actions to eliminate the disease.

He informed that India has the highest estimated burden of TB infection (TBI) globally with nearly 35-40 crore people, of which 26 lakh (18-36 lakh) are estimated to be developing into the disease annually. He added that 5–10% of those infected are likely to have TB disease over the course of their lives, usually within the first two years after infection.

The consultant then dwelled on the National Strategic Plan 2017-25 for TB elimination and stressed on strengthening support systems including enabling policies, empowered institutions and human resources with enhanced capacities.

Speaking about the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) in Nagaland, he informed that the COVID-19 had affected the programme but the state is picking up. (Refer table)

He said the department’s key priorities this year are wider dissemination of TB through various media platforms, all out surveillance, optimal use of available diagnostics, ensure compliance to Rx using user-friendly regimens, multi-sectoral coordination in TB response, community support for TB and scale up of preventive treatment.

Dr. Palash Talukdar, WHO Medical Consultant, Assam, stressed on the need for notifying the number of cases from institutions to know the exact status and know the burden of the disease; public actions, household contact tracing and community involvement.

He said the reduction in number of TB deaths in 2020 was 36 per 100,000, while the TB Free India 2025 target is to make it 3 per 1,00,000 population. He added that the reduction in TB incidence rate as of 2020 is 188 per 1,00,000, while the 2025 target is 44 per 1,00,000 population.

He said that TB-affected families facing catastrophic cost due to the disease in 2020 is 13-17% while the TB Free 2025 target is zero catastrophic cost due to TB.

Meanwhile, Dr. Talukdar laid emphasis on leveraging Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and community support for TB patients at all levels in the form nutritional support (mandatory), vocational support, diagnostics, additional nutritional supplement with a period of commitment – 1 to 3 years.

To accelerate this, the SPO for NTEP, Nagaland had earlier this month written to faith-based organisations and NGOs to come forward in the form of community support; as well as to the district tuberculosis officers (DTOs), wherein Longleng was one of the first districts in the state to come forward towards the cause.

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