The State Media Roundtable on the theme ‘Role of Media towards TB elimination by 2025’ was organised at a city based hotel on Wednesday. The chief guest of the function was Dr. Ranjit Prasad STO (State Tuberculosis Officer). Dr Rajeev Pathak, WHO, Consultant to NTEP, Jharkhand along with Damodar Kumar Mondal, SPPM Coordinator, NTEP, Jharkhand and Sanjay Mishra, President, Ranchi Press Club, was also present during the workshop. To grace the occasion and share their opinion, 26 media personnel from 16 media houses from both print & press media were present.
Dr. Rajeev Pathak, WHO consultant, NTEP Jharkhand shared that if the community is aware and comes forward for timely diagnosis then maximum number of people can be timely detected and cured. 80 per cent of the TB cases are pulmonary and the remaining 20% have extra pulmonary TB. TB bacteria could affect entire body parts except nails and hairs. At present awareness about EPTB is very poor so the prognosis is also poor.
Community awareness needs to be focused for EP TB diagnosis and the health system also needs to focus on diagnosis of EP TB. TB is the airborne infection and as per study around 40 per cent of the population has TB infection and the bacteria are in the latent phase. Out of these 40 per cent latent cases only 2 per cent is detected. As per WHO TB is the 10th deadliest disease about 5200 people die of TB worldwide and around 1400 people die of TB in India. TB is the curable disease subject that is timely diagnosed and treatment is started. India will soon have a TB vaccine although at present BCG vaccine works against TB. Worldwide incidence of TB is 127 per 100000 of population and in India is 188 per 100000 of population. India has 20 per cent of the total global burden in Jharkhand. SDG has set the goal for TB elimination by 2035 but in India as per the visionary leadership of PM we have set the India target by 2025. TB incidence in 2015 was 217 per 100000 of population and we aim to reduce this to 44 per 100000 of population the mortality was 34 per 100000 of population in 2015 and in 2025 we aim to reduce this to 2.8 per 100000 of population.
Dr. A.K. Mitra, STDC Director, shared about different social security schemes available for people with TB. He shared about the Nikshay Poshan Yojna where Rs, 500 is provided each month during the entire treatment phase to PWTB.
Dr. Ranjit Prasad, STO NTEP Jharkhand shared that the government is committed to end TB by 2025. Government is ensuring ample availability of medicines, a world class diagnosis facility and we have around 200 DMC centers which are aimed to upgrade to the TrueNat facility center.
Sanjay Mishra president press Jharkhand shared that TB falls under the neglected disease but it needs to be put under the priority basket. Social security schemes need to be prioritized for PWTB and it should reach the people for whom the schemes are entitled to. Pranaw Kumar Jha State Operations Lead-Jharkhand REACH coordinated the workshop.