Even though the State and Central Government provide drugs and treatment free of cost to all tuberculosis patients irrespective of their financial status, only around half of all TB patients avail themselves of these facilities.
In a major initiative aimed at increasing coverage of tuberculosis patients, a public-private partnership initiative will be launched here on Friday through which private pharmacies will distribute the free drugs to registered TB patients. Pharmacists will also be trained on how to assess TB patients and refer them to hospitals, if necessary. The TB patients now get the drugs from primary health centres, Government hospitals and Community DOTS providers.
A senior officer in the TB division told The Hindu here on Thursday that Coimbatore would become the first district in Tamil Nadu to adopt this approach, which was aimed at becoming a model for the rest of the State. The Government would supply the drugs to the pharmacies. A formal training programme for pharmacists would be held on Friday at the P.S.G. College of Pharmacy.
While the district recorded 1,600 new TB patients every year, the actual number of cases was expected to be double this figure. So far, 105 cases of Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) had been recorded here.
A major objective of this initiate was to track TB patients before they got MDR-TB, which was resistant to the two most effective anti-tuberculosis drugs available and could only be diagnosed in a specialised laboratory. While TB required six months of treatment, MDR-TB required two years and stronger drugs.
Pharmacy association
As of now, this initiative would be operational in 13 pharmacies operated by three pharmacy chains of P.S.G., Pasumai and Thulasi. However, the pharmacy association had already agreed to take part and this number was expected to increase shortly.
This initiative would also remove the stigma among a section of the population, which was hesitant to approach the Government-run health facilities, the officer added.
This initiative was part of Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), implemented by the Central Government with the support from World Health Organisation (WHO).
