Effort to eliminate Tuberculosis (TB) gathers steam in Meghalaya

A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG: The State Tuberculosis (TB) cell under National Health Mission, Meghalaya, informed that in the last few months, various initiatives have been undertaken to create awareness about tuberculosis among people across the State.

"Intensive efforts have gone in to ensure availability of modern testing equipment. Despite the pandemic impacting service delivery and TB notifications, innovative mitigation strategies were deployed to ensure that notifications were back to pre-pandemic levels," Dr M Mawrie, State TB Officer.

Dr Mawrie informed that the programme notified 4,189 Tuberculosis cases in 2021 in Meghalaya. In the first quarter of 2022, around 1,075 patients have been notified and enrolled for treatment.

Three months back, the country's National TB Prevalence Survey indicated that approximately 64 per cent of symptomatic Indians did not seek professional care for TB, indicating that building awareness continues to remain an important objective for the TB programmes.

On the efforts to build awareness and ensure last mile delivery of health services, Dr Mawrie added, "In the last few months, the TB programme has been trying to screen for presumptive TB cases. Once identified as TB cases, they are being immediately enrolled for TB treatment. Various ongoing initiatives to eliminate TB, include Active Case Finding (ACF) with the support of front-line health workers; collection of quality sputum from identified presumptive TB person for testing; organizing a variety of awareness programmes on a regular basis for specific community groups such as faith leaders, traditional healers, tribal youth, tribal leaders and community influencers within tribal communities."

Focusing on the lessons learnt from the pandemic for the fight against TB, Ramkumar S, MD of the National Health Mission, Meghalaya, stated: "Looking at the profile of the State, TB is one of the top causes of deaths due to diseases. In recent time, the stellar community work of ASHA workers, and with concerted efforts, the State has been able to almost eliminate the menace of malaria. A similar effort is underway for TB as well. Lessons from managing the Covid-19 pandemic has enabled us to intensify our efforts against TB. For instance, now each health centre has TB screening and testing capability. We are now able to leverage technology better, making TB notifications easier through mobile applications. We are ensuring that pharmacies are not issuing drugs to patients without proper prescriptions of health experts".

Addressing the journalists present, he further added, "This is an important meeting today. Media is an important partner that must continue to play a leading role of educating the public about TB, and take the message right to the community-level."

Across Meghalaya, the spirit of the Jan Andolan or people's movement against TB is taking shape. It is bringing people from all walks of life together to support the State's consistent efforts to eliminate the disease.

All participants at the meet undertook a pledge to eliminate TB from their village, district or state. All citizens can come forward to take a pledge on https://pledge.mygov.in/tbday/

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