Funds and infrastructure constraints come in the way of intensifying the District Tuberculosis Centre’s drive for awareness on the disease, its detection and follow-up.
The centre functions from a 37-year-old building that is becoming less safe0 by the day, and has only one vehicle to supply drugs, testing reagents and other materials to about 10 TB sub-centres across the district, District TB Officer P.P. Pramod Kumar, said on Monday.
The good news, however, is that the TB detection drive in the district has got a boost now with the allocation of equipment that can provide test results in two hours.
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“This is a blessing, compared to the wait for a number of days for the culture test results to come from Thiruvananthapuram,” he said.
It performs cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test and polymer chain reaction test to diagnose TB from the sputum samples of persons suspected to have the disease.
“The equipment is particularly helpful in the case of detecting multi-drug resistant TB, which is worsening of the disease when a patient drops out of the 6-month Directly Observed Treatment-short course (DOTs),” he said. The new equipment could provide the results in two hours. It could be used on the field with minimum training for those handling it.
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Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Idukki, Ernakuklam, Malapuram and Kasaragod also have been provided with the equipment that costs Rs.20 lakh. These are among the first batch of 300 that the Central government is distributing across the country.
As for the problems plaguing the centre, Dr. Pramod said it would be better if it were brought under the Kozhikode Corporation.
Better funding
“This would ensure better funding for the infrastructure and other logistics. The Vadakara District Hospital and an Ayurveda hospital in the district do well because of being brought under the District panchayat,” he said.
“Our funding is now under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, after the Central government halted funding under the allocation of the World Health Organisation.
The annual allocation for the Kozhikode centre is Rs.1.26 crore, and this is used for a whole range of expenses – from civil works to drugs to salaries. It must be raised to a minimum of Rs.2 crore,” he said.