Private-sector tuberculosis (TB) notifications in the State have been on the rise for the last few years.
As many as 91,703 TB cases [both private and public] were reported in Karnataka in 2019, which is a 10% increase in notifications compared to the 83,094 in 2018.
And the private sector notifications in 2019 saw an increase of over 35%, compared to the previous year.
As many as 19,591 TB patients were notified from the private sector, which is approximately 21% of the total notifications reported in 2019, according to the India TB Report 2020, released by the Union Health Ministry recently.
TB is a notifiable disease in the country since May 2012, for which the government has set up a web-based, case-based notification network called NIKSHAY.
Despite awareness regarding mandatory TB notification, a significant number of private practitioners do not report cases and this has led to cases being missed out of the government data.
However, the situation is improving over the years with more private participation.
Of the 83,094 overall patients who were notified for TB in Karnataka in 2018, only 17.38% [14,437] were private sector notifications.
The private sector notifications increased by 20% in 2018, compared to the 11,988 in 2017.
While experts said the mandatory notification policy, launch of private sector engagement programmes, and incentives to private providers have been major contributing factors to the increase, State Health officials said this is a result of the Patient Provider Support Agency (PPSA) initiative.
“Most importantly, our District TB Officers (DTOs) have now established a good rapport with private practitioners and have been regularly following up with them for notifications,” said Anil S., State Deputy Director (TB).
“The private notifications have seen a huge jump from 512 in 2016, when we initially started, to 19,591 in 2019. Our engagement with the private sector has improved a lot compared to previous years. We have organised over 50 Continuing Medical Education (CME) programmes in the last one year for corporate hospitals and this has helped a lot in increasing the private notifications,” Dr. Anil said.
According to the report, in 2019 there were 24 lakh new (TB) case notifications in India, an increase of 2.48 lakh [11.5%] cases in a single year. More importantly, private notifications have increased by 25.1% in the last one year — from 5.4 lakh in 2018 to 6.7 lakh in 2018.
In 2019, as part of active case finding efforts, close to 3 lakh vulnerable populations were screened, resulting in identification of 4,841 TB cases in Karnataka. Active case finding involves actively searching for TB patients among the vulnerable populations.
