A 24-member Central health team has viewed that the State needs to strengthen early detection and treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) patients so that spread of the multidrug resistant disease can be arrested.
The team headed by Additional Deputy Director General (TB Division) of the Health and Family Welfare Dr Niraj Kulshrestha visited the State recently to evaluate the RNTCP (Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme) implementation in the State.The team comprised consultants from Central TB Division, WHO and RNTCP consultants from other States, district-level TB officers from Chhattisgarh and Kerala and representatives from CBCI, IMA, and AIDS Control Programme.
The team visited Ganjam and Cuttack district during its stay. They conducted field visits and interacted with patients undergoing TB treatment in five blocks in each of the two districts. They evaluated activities at the ATDTC Cuttack, the reference laboratory for TB in the State.The team called on Health and Family Welfare Secretary Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra at the Secretariat on Friday. They told Mohapatra that thought patients are getting medicine properly, yet they need better supervision.
“The emergence of multidrug resistant TB calls for early detection and treatment, which needs strengthening. TB patients should be detected and treated so that the disease spread could be arrested,” the team told Mohapatra.They also emphasized that the patients taking treatment in the private hospitals should be notified under the Clinical Establishment Act and should get treatment as outlined in the Indian Standards of TB Care. Advocacy and administrative support with dissemination of the information related to TB care need to be intensified, they suggested.