Tuberculosis declared ?notifiable disease?

[Ronan Kelly]

Tuberculosis declared ?notifiable disease?
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 09, 2012,13:18 0


Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: After the stupendous success in Polio eradication, the government appears to have set its eyes on Tuberculosis (TB) as it has been declared a notifiable disease. Implying: from now on, any institution/hospital, government or private, which detects a new tuberculosis patient, will have to inform the government about the case and the kind of treatment given.

The notification was sent to all states on May 7.

According to the notification, to ensure proper monitoring, trim down TB transmission and choke the cases of drug resistant TB, the designated authority that would have to be informed about new TB cases are the district health officer/CMO of a district and the municipal health officer in a municipality.
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http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/tuberculosis-declared-notifiable-disease_16891.html

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Tuberculosis declared ?notifiable disease?

Mandatory Notification of Tuberculosis

The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India has declared TB as a mandatory notifiable disease with immediate effect.

In order to ensure proper TB diagnosis and case management, reduce TB transmission and address the problems of emergence of spread of Drug Resistant-TB, it is essential to have complete information of all TB cases. For the purpose of this notification, healthcare providers will include clinical establishments run or managed by the Government (including local authorities), private or NGO sectors and/or individual practitioners.

Notification of TB cases by all healthcare providers will help patients with better access to quality diagnosis and treatment. This would facilitate early diagnosis, rational treatment, prevention of complications, drug resistance and reduce deaths due to TB. This notification system will also help the healthcare providers to offer better linkages for quality diagnostic and treatment services to the TB patients. Further it will facilitate the National TB Control Programme to realistically estimate TB disease burden, plan resources and control measures commensurate with the actual burden of disease for larger interest of the public and nation as a whole.

TB continues to be a major public health problem accounting for substantial morbidity and mortality in the country. Early diagnosis and complete treatment of TB is the corner-stone of TB prevention and control strategy. Inappropriate diagnosis and irregular/incomplete treatment with anti-TB drugs may contribute to complications, disease spread and emergence of Drug Resistant TB.

SBS
(Release ID :83486)
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=83486

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Tuberculosis declared ?notifiable disease?

What does making TB a notifiable disease mean to us?
Back To Main Health

Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant

On one hand the Indian Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) needs to be complimented for making tuberculosis (TB) a notifiable disease, but on the other hand there are words of caution and oft-repeated list of actions RNTCP should consider to reach the unreached populations who need TB services. Probably in response to the alarm bells that went ringing when Mumbai reported ?total drug-resistant TB cases? the government has taken the step to make TB a notifiable disease.
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However this may also boomerang ? especially for those populations who are currently unreached and might be forced to go underground for a range of reasons and refrain from accessing public or private healthcare system. This will clearly have a very profound negative impact on TB control and health system in general. According to the RNTCP, it had achieved a ?new sputum positive TB case detection rate? of more than 73% in 2010. This also implies that the RNTCP is not reaching to, at least, 27% of estimated number of people who need TB care services. Will making TB a notifiable disease really help us reach these unreached populations ? is a big question to which we see no clear answer.
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There is another brewing human rights question. With close to 100,000 people estimated to contract multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in India annually, the RNTCP has provided standard treatment to only 3610 patients since the inception of DOTS-Plus programme (source: RNTCP Report, December 2011). By its own admission, the RNTCP aims to deliver MDR-TB treatment to only about 30,000 patients by 2013 thus leaving out 70,000 who will still be in dire need of MDR-TB treatment, care and support services every year. Turning down, or not reaching out, or not being able to reach out, to the remaining 70,000 cases (as per current estimates) is, honestly, unacceptable in terms of public health as well as social justice ? and ? a looming human rights emergency.
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http://www.southasiamail.com/news.php?id=104724