The district, on a mission to eradicate tuberculosis, has taken up the Joint Effort for Elimination of TB (JEET) programme by involving major private sector hospitals which have agreed to provide treatment in accordance with the national guidelines.
Thirty-four hospitals have joined JEET till now, and the aim is to bring all the 130-odd hospitals, including one-man clinics in the district, under the loop, said District TB Officer Sharath G. Rao. By May, at least 100 hospitals would be brought under the programme. Various units of the Indian Medical Association in the district too have promised to co-ordinate with clinics and hospitals in this regard, said Dr. Rao.
In the private medical institutions, a nodal officer and a trained nurse will act as the resource persons and train others. They would also be the contact persons to liaise with the government programme.
At present, there is very little data from the private sector about TB patients seeking treatment in such institutions, making this a major hurdle in eliminating the disease.
The district has 1,890 common TD cases and 57 multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases, a rate that is higher than the State average. This may partly be owing to the fact that the district got many referral cases because of the large number of advanced treatment centres here, said Dr. Rao.
The district had been able to bring the number of cases of MDR-TB down from 67 cases last year, said Dr. Rao. JEET will help monitor a TB patient’s drug intake and misses every month. The national programme envisages a token monetary help during the period of treatment when the patient faces possible stigma and discrimination and would be unable to go to work.
TB turns into MDR-TB when a patient drops out of the treatment regimen, he said. When the disease becomes asymptomatic after the initial months, the patients fails to continue the treatment. However, the residual bacteria in the patient’s body develop immunity to the first-line TB drugs. When the patient appears again for treatment, it becomes difficult to combat it.
The groundwork for eliminating TB begun with a survey of the vulnerable population at the grassroots level by undertaking house visits and taking into account TB survivors and people with low immunity such as those with diabetes, and cancer and transplant patients.
More than 8.9 lakh households were visited to compile the data. All the primary health centres have been provided with such data for the areas under them for TB surveillance.
