Estimated incidence of tuberculosis (TB) went down by 37.5% in Kerala between 2015-20, the State registering an annual decline rate of 7.5%.
“This is huge, because even global figures for annual incidence of TB reduction has never been more than 2-3% and Kerala is the only State to achieve this,” Rakesh P.S., WHO consultant, TB Elimination, said
This has won the State a bronze medal in the Union Health Ministry’s just-concluded Sub National Certification of Efforts Towards Elimination of TB. The award will be presented by the Union Health Minister on Wednesday, World TB Day.
The nation has set an ambitious goal to achieve “End Tuberculosis” by reducing the incidence of new TB cases by 80% by 2025, five years ahead of UN Sustainable Development Goals time lines.
The sub-national certification is a process that the Health Ministry introduced this year to reward well-performing States /districts when they achieve specific milestones in their journey towards TB elimination.
The State’s claim of TB incidence decline was independently evaluated by a team from the National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, WHO and Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, which went through the entire data sets since 2015.
This was followed by a month-long door-to-door survey, which covered 83,000 people in the districts of Kollam, Ernakulam, Malappuram and Kasaragod.
About 43 amongst this 83,000 persons had TB in the past one year. The researchers found that all 43 had been accounted for in the Nikshay national TB notification software, an indication of the State’s strong surveillance and reporting system. The researchers also cross checked data on TB drug sales from major private practitioners from all districts and the State Drugs Control Department
“In 2017, Kerala re-designed the TB elimination drive as People’s Movement Against TB and from that point, it was the active involvement of the local community and panchayats which drove the State’s efforts. This was a unique initiative which gave rich dividends,” M. Sunilkumar, State TB Officer, said.
The State did a mammoth vulnerability mapping study to identify people at high risk of developing active TB and the 7.5 lakh individuals thus identified are being followed up at the community level.
Attention was paid to the control of diabetes and Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), reduction of tobacco use and malnutrition, which also reduced the vulnerability to TB. Strengthening private sector involvement in TB control and air-borne infection control programmes at all hospitals too helped the State in its TB elimination drive.
