Aiming to make district tuberculosis free by 2024, the district health authorities organised a 10-day health screening campaign to list the active cases under revised national TB control programme.
To raise awareness on tuberculosis being preventable and curable, school health programmes and community meetings are being held throughout the week in the district. As per the active data case findings in the TB detection survey, as many as 1373 suspected TB patients have been identified out of which 47 have been confirmed to have the disease.
Whenever a person has cough problem for more than two weeks, it is advised that the doctor must be consulted. The bacteria causing tuberculosis generally attack the lungs, but TB bacteria can attack any part of the body such as the kidney, spine, and brain as well. Not everyone infected with TB bacteria becomes sick so it can be latent TB infection (LTBI) also. If not treated properly, TB disease can be fatal, say the medical experts.
Speaking to The Pioneer, the district TB officer Ajay Kumar said, “Under the revised national TB control programme, a target of covering 88,553 people has been fixed. We had started the screening drive on December 17 and within a week up to December 24, 47 new TB patients were listed. By Friday the final list of patients will be out.”
Regarding the treatment, Ajay Kumar said, “All the new patients are being treated as per DOT treatment free of cost. Also, to help them have a nutritional diet, Rs 500 will be sent in their bank accounts per month.”
The district health authorities team had visited 13,072 houses during the survey. A total of 64,963 people were covered. Out of the suspected 1373 cases, 794 underwent the sputum test. Discussing the mode of spread of the disease, the district TB officer said that TB bacteria are spread through the air from one person to another when a person with TB disease of the lungs or throat coughs or speaks. People nearby may breathe in these bacteria and become infected.
When asked, the honourary secretary, Association of Physicians of India, Dr Sanjay Shah said, “Many a times little knowledge about the disease can be a dangerous thing. It is mandatory that people understand that tuberculosis is not spread by shaking someone's hand, sharing food or drink, touching bed linens or toilet seats, sharing toothbrushes. It is only through sputum and water droplets in air that the infection spreads,” he adds. When a person breathes in TB bacteria, the bacteria can settle in the lungs and begin to grow. From there, they can move through the blood to other parts of the body, such as the kidney, spine and brain.