Telangana: Reporting TB makes it easier to tackle cases

Hyderabad: The TB eradication drive by 2025 in the state is improving exponentially across the state with not only TB facilities reporting TB cases but also private hospitals and practitioners are now notifying the cases.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has set the target to eradicate TB by 2025. Previously in the year 2012, the Health Ministry had made it mandatory for private health care institutions and practitioners to report TB cases to government authorities.

But it took this long over the past 9 years to implement the cooperation of private health care institutions and doctors treating TB cases.

For quite this long, doctors and private health care institutions were hesitant to report TB cases fearing their patients could end up being targeted by government-run TB eradication programme.

But however, in the past one year the Hyderabad-chapter of Indian Medical Association (IMA) and State TB Cell have launched a coordinated effort to convince private doctors about the importance of TB notification.

“To get cured from TB, patients must adhere to the treatment protocol. However, many drop-out in the first few weeks due to various reasons. Improved notification is now helping us track such patients and ensure they are taking TB drugs regularly,” says Joint Director (TB) and State TB Officer, Dr. A Rajesham.

The IMA is now closely working with the State TB authorities and with a series of awareness programmes, Continuing Medical Education (CMEs), workshops, training sessions and coming out with strategies for better implementation of the programme.

“For the past 18 months, we have been organizing a series of awareness programmes among our members. The aim is to encourage private doctors to report TB cases and also make them aware about the new TB treatment protocols that are in place,” says Dr. Srirang Abkari, who conducts these IMA programs.