Community involvement aiding battle against TB in Assam

Government sets goal of reducing tuberculosis infection rate from 217 per lakh in 2015 to 44 per lakh by 2025

June 02, 2022 05:15 pm | Updated 05:15 pm IST - GUWAHATI

According to the World Health Organization, India bears about a quarter of the world’s TB burden. File image of an X-ray of a tuberculosis patient for representation

According to the World Health Organization, India bears about a quarter of the world’s TB burden. File image of an X-ray of a tuberculosis patient for representation | Photo Credit: Nissar Ahmad

GUWAHATI

Involving the community has helped devise strategies to break psychological barriers in the battle against tuberculosis in Assam and three other States, an initiative by a Karnataka-based trust has revealed.

The Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) has been running a USAID-supported project on TB across four States — Assam, Bihar, Karnataka and Telangana — targeting the most vulnerable groups, such as mining and industrial workers, tea garden workers, migrants, the urban vulnerable, and tribal people.

The KHPT’s Assam project covers tea plantation workers in Dibrugarh, the tribal population in Baksa, and the urban vulnerable in Kamrup (Metro) district.

“A total of 625 TB patients and caregivers benefited from 99 care and support group meetings involving 315 community structures. The project clearly shows how community structures have contributed to TB response in the three districts, and their initiative has contributed to 72,168 [individuals] being screened,” Prasenjit Das, the project’s Assam head said.

KHPT’s programme director Rehana Begam said the project had begun with conducting a primary behavioural study and webinars to assess and dive deep into the contexts, barriers and other nuances surrounding the populations vulnerable to TB.

“A mapping exercise was subsequently undertaken to identify vulnerable clusters for implementing the planned initiatives and developing behavioural change solutions so that people overcome stigma and gender issues and come forward for detection and treatment,” she said.

“Concurrently, we focused on creating an environment of encouragement for the TB patient and caregivers by involving TB survivors who have experienced these problems and who extend support and take them through this journey. What is critical is the community voice that informs our strategy and every step of the action,” Ms. Begam said.

Avijit Basu, the State TB officer in Assam’s Department of Health Services, said the State government has been working on the goal of reducing the TB infection rate from 217 per lakh in 2015 to 44 per lakh by 2025 under the ongoing National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme.

According to the World Health Organization, India bears about a quarter of the world’s TB burden, with the disease killing close to half a million people in the country annually.

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.