ANANTNAG: The Deputy Commissioner (DC) Anantnag, Dr Piyush Singla today chaired the TB forum meeting at DC Office, here.
The TB forum is a platform with representatives from District Administration, Health, PRI members, Journalists, Advocates and members of the civil society and is aimed to supplement and complement government initiatives for eradication of tuberculosis by 2025 and reduce stigma associated with TB.
Speaking on the occasion, the DC said that the health department should shift to an active approach to eliminate TB from the district. He said aggressive campaigning must be carried out to ensure maximum coverage and reduce the stigma associated with TB in the society.
He said that the incentive policy for identifying TB cases where Rs 1000 is given to private practitioners for notifying TB cases must be widely publicized.
Regarding the sub-national certification to be started in the district by Saturday to assess the present extent of TB eradication, the DC agreed to augment survey remuneration to surveyors by Equivalent amount from their own resources. This was done to have quality service in the district.
Dr Singla lauded the DTO and his team for the work carried out so far and said that dedicated efforts have to be made to eradicate TB. He said the focus should be on educating people particularly the high risk group that can contract TB due to other comorbidities.
Earlier, the DTO presented the achievements of the district so far. He said that the DTC center caters to Anantnag and Kulgam through 12 treatment units, 16 DMCs and 361 DOT Centres.
He said that under universal drug susceptibility testing, out of 690 patients, 627 have been tested so far. Similarly under HIV diabetes testing 100 percent of the patients have been tested. Under Nikshay Poshan Yojana, an amount of Rs 15.79 lacs has been disbursed which covers 95 percent of the eligible cases and the remaining cases are under process.
The District Tuberculosis Center has also provided treatment support honorarium of Rs 16000 to 12 patients.
The participants were informed that the district will commence the Sub National Certification from Saturday whereby a cluster based survey will be carried out in the district. A 30 member survey team will conduct the survey in 15 clusters to assess the present TB scenario in the district.
The meeting was attended by ADDC, CMO, HoD Medicine GMC Srinagar, MS GMC Anantnag, and representatives from WHO, PRI members, representatives from media and NGOs among others.