2 weeks Ago By Steffy Thevar
Pune: The national 100-day anti-tuberculosis campaign, which began on Dec 7 and concluded on March 24, ended up detecting 40,471 new cases in Maharashtra, from the more than one crore people who were screened. According to state data, healthcare workers screened a total of 1,37,13,376 people, across 53 regions. In all of last year, Maharashtra had detected 2,30,515 TB cases.
Officials said details of the 40,471 patients have now been uploaded to the Centre's Nikshay Portal — set up to help track patients and their treatment. Maharashtra has also acquired Cy-TB skin tests , a next-gen test for detecting TB. So far, the health department has administered over 35,000 Cy-TB tests across select districts, all in an effort to detect TB early in people.
Dr Usha Gaddam, a general physician with Apollo Clinic said: " Early detection of TB means finding infection in people who don't always have symptoms. It breaks transmission chains by enabling identification and isolation of infected individuals, thus preventing further spread within communities, as tuberculosis is highly communicable." Dr Sandeep Sangale, joint director of Health (TB), Maharashtra, said the state has set up infrastructure to implement the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP).
He said: "Thirty-six revenue districts of Maharashtra have been split into ‘80 NTEP districts'. As for diagnostic facilities, we have 2,025 designated microscopic centres and 795 Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT) machines for the diagnosis of TB. Apart from fixed X-ray machines for each of these districts, the state also has 99 hand-held X-ray devices.
And to manage drug-resistant TB (DRTB), there are 21 nodal centres and 42 district TB centres. We want to made sure each case of TB is detected at the right time." Dr Rishabh Raj, critical care consultant at Mumbai's KJ Somaiya Hospital & Research Centre, called for more dedicated TB hospitals to be opened statewide, each with their own isolation wings, to treat MDR-TB or multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Dr Raj said: "Patients should be in these isolation wings for the duration of their treatment. Regular community level programmes should also be carried out to educate people on the importance of hand hygiene and masking. People with symptoms of cough, fever, weight loss, loss of appetite for more than two weeks should be encouraged to visit the doctor.
Early and appropriate treatment is the best way to prevent tuberculosis at the community level.".
