Undiagnosed tuberculosis (TB) patients in society remain a challenge for the national TB control programme, and to highlight this and related issues, the district will mark World TB Day on Thursday with a rally in Muvattupuzha to create awareness.
Though the government has provided software to collate data on TB cases, only a few institutions care to report the disease. Most of the data that the government collects is based on the patients reaching government institutions for treatment, said Anoj S., District TB officer.
Only 20-odd institutions in the private sector are registered with the national programme for TB eradication, which has given the clarion call “Unite to end TB”.
In 2015, the district reported 2,261 cases of TB, which, compared with 2,598 cases in 2005, are significantly lower, said Dr. Anoj. Awareness about TB created through sensitisation programmes at various levels had played a role in making people realise that persistent cough for over two weeks, or fever at night, and a sudden loss of weight are among the typical symptoms. These are usually ignored by people, he said.
TB infections are of various types, but those having infections in the lungs are liable to spread the disease.
Since the disease is spread by air-borne bacteria, anyone could be infected. People who have low immunity are more susceptible to the infection.
Those with TB in parts of the body other than lungs such as lymphnodes or spine, a condition termed as extra-pulmonary TB, do not spread the infection.
Besides the difficulty in obtaining data from private institutions and non-compliance by the people with the medical regimen, cases of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR TB) in the district have been on the rise with 45 such cases recorded at present.
MDR TB is found in 1-3 per cent of the people, while it is around 12 per cent in relapsed TB cases.
According to Dr. Anoj, the district has had an 80 per cent cure rate of TB cases over the past 10 years.
