TB-free status: Med Colleges asked to nominate faculties for certification task
The selected faculties will carry out verification of claims;
KOLKATA: State Health department directed medical colleges in 13 districts, including the IPGMER & SSKM Hospital in Kolkata, to nominate faculties from the department of community medicine, who will carry out activities relating to the verification of claims for sub-national certification (SNC) towards TB-free status.
The verification of claims will help the government determine the situation of TB in various districts. Field surveys will be carried out in this regard. In the line of National target, the Bengal government is progressing towards elimination of TB by 2025 and achieve the status ~ 'TB Mukto Bangla' (TB free Bengal).
It may also be mentioned here that two districts of Bengal were awarded sub-national certification for progress for 2021. East Midnapore, including Nandigram Health district, was nominated for Gold category award. Other districts which were selected in gold category status were South Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Bankura.
Nadia, Purulia, South 24-Parganas, West Midnapore, Howrah, Hooghly, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Kalimpong, North Dinajpur, North 24-Parganas had obtained award in bronze category for carrying out significant development towards obtaining the TB-free status.
The faculties who will conduct the verification will be selected from various medical colleges. The verification claims will be centrally carried out in various districts by the ICMR in collaboration with WHO and the state governments.
Earlier this month, the State Health department had written to the Chief Medical Officer of Health in all the districts pointing out that TB case notification from private health facilities in the state is too low. An order was issued by the department recently saying that total TB case notification in our state is far behind the annual target of 1,30,000 for the calendar year 2022.
The order also stated that only 84,151 number of TB cases have been notified for January up to October this year, which is 78 per cent of the annual target.