Make efforts to make J&K TB free by end of 2025: CS to officers

Jammu, Dec 24: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo today impressed upon the concerned officers of Health and Medical Education (H&ME) Department to make untiring efforts in making J&K Tuberculosis (TB) free by the end of the year 2025 as envisaged under PM TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan.

According to an official press release he was addressing a meeting of the department here. Besides the Secretary H&ME the meeting was attended by Principal GMC, Jammu/Srinagar, MD, JKMSCL, Director Health, Jammu/Kashmir; State TB Officer, Kashmir/Jammu and other concerned officers.

While taking note of the incidence of this disease in the UT, the Chief Secretary stressed on enthusiastic tracing of contacts, intensive sampling and involvement of community to make J&K free from TB.He further advised for efficient utilization of the services of ASHA workers, women SHG members of JKRLM and other rural institutions to reach out to al the people and areas in identifying the potential affected persons and drawing of samples for carrying out necessary diagnostics.

As far as the IEC for creating general awareness among public is concerned, Dulloo enjoined upon the Department to send bulk messages to the family members of the patients for their sensitisation and care about their health.

He also asked them to make it a regular feature to keep check on the Health &Wellness Centres and Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs for sending samples from their areas of service. He also directed the senior officers of the Department to visit the TB facilities created across the length and breadth of J&K.

In his presentation the Secretary, H&ME, Dr Syed Abid Rashid Shah gave out the overall view of the TB scenario here along with the aims and objectives of this ongoing PMTBMB Abhiyan.

He revealed that J&K has a TB affected population of around 11,650 persons who are provided free treatment through different facilities established across the districts of the UT.

He also revealed that besides the free treatment of these patients they are being provided Rs 1000/ month under Nikshay Poshan Yojana and a food basket to 6146 patients through 5406 Nikshay Mitras, who had given their consent to receive the community support.

In addition it was given out that the districts of Anantnag, Budgam and Pulwama had already been declared ‘TB Free’ with Baramulla, Srinagar, Bandipora, Kupwara, Kulgam, Shopian and Ganderbal submitted for this declaration to Sub-National Certification.

The meeting was further apprised that this year about 463872 presumptive tests were done against a target of 486887 (1000/lakh of population) at the rate of 3047 persons per lakh of population here.

It was also apprised that out of 4243 Panchayats, 1516 had been declared ‘TB Free’. In addition a ‘100-Days TB Campaign’ has been launched from Dec, 7 this year to hold Ni-Kshay Shivir, targeting 347 high-priority districts across India, including Jammu, Srinagar &Baramulla districts of J&K under National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP).

The campaign aims at accelerating TB case detection among vulnerable populations, reducing TB mortality through better management of cases and preventing new infections by implementing focused interventions in districts with the highest TB burden.