AIR Spotlight: World Tuberculosis Day- TB Prevention and Control

AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio News on air. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation.

This article is about the discussion on: ‘World Tuberculosis Day- TB Prevention and Control’.

Participants: 

1. Dr. Tanmay Taluqdar, Professor & HOD, Department of TB & Chest Disease, Lady Hardinge Medical College
2. Omvesh Upadhyay, AIR correspondent

Context:  World TB Day is celebrated on 24th March every year.

Introduction:

• World TB day is organized on March 24th annually to commemorate the date in 1882, when Robert Koch announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
• It aims to educate people about TB around the world.
• Every year World Health Organization comes up with a new theme to educate the people. The theme of 2023 is ‘Yes! We Can End TB!’.
• WHO wants to focus on newer evidence-based recommendations and increased visibility of TB cases around the world.
• It aims to increase community participation, introduce new initiatives, and have multi-sectoral collaboration.

For more information on World TB Day, read here: World Tuberculosis Day (24th March) – UPSC Notes

Details about TB:

• The majority of TB cases are related to Pulmonary Tuberculosis with almost 70% of cases.
• The TB that impacts other organs is called extra-pulmonary TB.
• The symptoms include cough for more than two weeks, fever for a long time, loss of appetite, and other organ-related symptoms.
• It is a little difficult to diagnose extrapulmonary TB. However, now there are much more advanced equipment to diagnose and treat it. For instance, there is a rapid molecular diagnostic technique called Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT).
• The existence of comorbidities like diabetes, lack of nutrition, HIV, etc can hamper immunity and severely impact the treatment at all stages.
• The TB cases registration and identification have increased by 50% as compared to the base year of 2015.

Challenges associated with TB:

• One of the major concerns is in diagnosing the disease. It will not only harm the patient but will also spread to more people surrounding the patient.
• As the treatment starts showing symptoms, the patient stops taking further medication. This is more harmful as it further increases drug resistance.
• There is also an issue of drug resistance in the form of Multi-Drug Resistance(MDR) TB  and Extensively Drug-Resistant(XDR) TB.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has de-railed the efforts to a certain extent. However, the recovery has now started.

Government Initiatives to eliminate TB:

• Nikshay Poshan Yojana is a government scheme where financial support is provided to patients through Direct Benefit Transfer(DBT).
• A telephone toll-free service called Nikshay Sampark is also deployed to address any query related to TB.
• At the End TB Summit of 2018, it was announced to eliminate TB in India by 2025 (five years ahead of the global target of 2030). And the officials at the district, state, and national levels are working in this direction.
• A TB champion initiative also exists to motivate the patients of TB by the survivors of the disease.
• On the occasion of World TB Day, Prime Minister launched other initiatives also like the TB Mukt Panchayat Abhiyan and Nikshay Mitra campaign which will involve the community, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Civil Society Organizations(CSO), etc.
• There is a TB preventive therapy with a simple regime. Moreover, a new shorter TB preventive treatment was also launched by the Indian government that will comprise of 12 doses (one dose a week for 12 weeks).
• In yet another move, the extension of patent monopoly on the drug Bedaquiline was declined by the Indian Patent Office. This would significantly reduce the prices of the drug.
• A caregiver module was also launched by the government of India in March 2023. This would train the family member to take care of the patient and empower them.

Way Ahead:

• In the initial symptoms of the disease, the patient should get immediately diagnosed. Precautionary measures to contain the spread like masks should be used.
• Discrimination of patients from relatives and friends should be avoided. People should act in a socially responsible manner.

Read previous AIR Spotlight articles in the link.

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