Likely to get ‘Bronze’ certification for TB-free district
Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Feb 9 : With the Government of India setting an ambitious goal of ending tuberculosis (TB) by 2025, the Health Department in a major development has filed a claim of a decline in the incidence rate of tuberculosis cases for 2020 in district Budgam compared to 2015.
The claim has been made under ‘Bronze’ category which is now being verified by the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE) along with other collaborative institutions.
Notably, the districts or states which have reported a decline of 20 per cent can file the claim under ‘Bronze’ category which comes with a monetary award of Rs 2 lakh, those with a decline of 40 per cent can file under ‘Silver’, with 60 per cent for ‘Gold’ and those with 80 per cent are conferred with ‘TB Free’ status with a monetary award of Rs 10 lakh as a part of sub-national certification for TB Free district, state.
The district Budgam since 2015 has shown a considerable decrease in the notification of TB cases prompting the authorities to put up the claim under the said category.
In 2015, Budgam had 257 TB cases and in 2020 the number has come down to 170 cases, indicating a decline of around 34 per cent in the incidence of TB cases, while also reporting an improvement in other parameters including Number-Needed-to-Treat (NTT).
In this regard, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had sought claims from the states, districts under the initiative, while as the ICMR-NIE has been tasked to verify the claims made by the districts and states.
While the concerned wing of the Health Department dealing with the TB selecting Budgam for the claim, around 10 villages in the district have been identified in the district where the survey for the verification of the claim made is already underway.
The villages that have been identified include, Dehramana, Sumerbugh in Chadoora, Hamchipora in Khag, Charangam in Beerwah, Kawsajagir in Magam, Chertu in Khansahib, Farhad Pora in Chadoora, Telsur in Char-e-Sharief, Narawarah in Beerwah and Khosapora in Khansahib.
“The baseline for the TB notifications has been taken as 2015 and we analysed the decline in the number of cases till 2020; there is a decrease, in Budgam and made a claim under Bronze category; the district also showed improvement on other parameters also, prompting us to go for the claim,” Dr Rehana Kaunsar State TB Officer, Kashmir told Excelsior.
She said that the teams are currently doing the fieldwork and have so far visited 273 households in selected 10 villages, while as a number 1473 individuals have been interviewed, 1033 individuals have agreed to participate in the survey while as 440 have declined.
Dr Rehana added that for the year 2020, they have put forth the claim for district Budgam and hopefully for 2021 they are set to put forth the claim of a decrease in the incidence of TB cases for Pulwama and Kupwara.
As per details, a mixed-method study is being conducted across 72 districts in the country who have submitted their claims for different levels of achievement of TB Free status to Central Tuberculosis Division (CTD). The qualitative component includes a community-based survey of participants of any gender, all age groups residing in the selected village.
The eligible participants will be administered a questionnaire which includes household information, characteristics of the participant, symptom screening, current and history of anti-TB treatment etc.
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