100-day TB awareness campaign, survey launched in Mysuru

Zilla Panchayat CEO K.M. Gayathri inaugurating the TB awareness campaign in Mysuru on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: M.A. Sriram

The 100-day TB awareness campaign was launched in Mysuru on Saturday. The focus area of the awareness campaign that aims to free Mysuru district from tuberculosis is the tribal settlements in the district which has been given the target to detect 4,200 cases.

Inaugurating the campaign at the Zilla Panchayat (ZP) hall here, ZP CEO K.M. Gayathri said the cooperation, and support of the officers and the staff from the Health Department and the public was necessary for combating TB and making Mysuru a “TB-free district”.

She said the 100-day awareness campaign has been launched with the aim of entirely eradicating the disease from the district. There is a provision to adopt TB patients from the “Nikshaya” portal. Whoever adopts the patients, they can support them with medicines, she added.

The ZP CEO said the priority has to be to identify TB patients, ensure the disease was not spread from the patients, and provide them treatment. If there is a cough for three to four weeks, then it could be a symptom of TB, and such people need to get the tests done. Free treatment is given to patients in the government healthcare institutions and ₹500 aid will be given to each identified patient, she informed.

Ms. Gayathri suggested more tests in rural areas and the role of health department officials and the ASHA staff was important in eradicating the disease. The support of the gram panchayat staff can be availed for identifying the patients and providing medicines to them in the GP levels.

DHO Kumaraswamy said high-risk patients are vulnerable to TB and therefore such patients need to be watchful.

Divisional Assistant Director of the Health Department, K.H. Prasad said TB is one of the dreadful diseases in the world. A TB patient can spread the disease to nearly 40 people around him or her. The treatment for eradicating the disease lasts for 8 months. But some people stop taking medicines after taking them for a few days and they do not overcome the disease. The disease gets relapsed after some days, he said.

He said TB has been eradicated in developed nations and the disease exists in developing nations. It is usually found in densely populated areas and there is a need to identify the disease in villages. If all villages are focussed like this and made them TB-free, then the entire district can be freed from TB, he felt.