PANAJI
Over 1.6 lakh of Goa’s nearly 2.14 lakh vulnerable population for tuberculosis has been screened at primary health centres and other government health facilities across the State, with nearly three-quarters of the 100-day hyper-local campaign launched by the Directorate of Health Services in December last year completed.
According to Dr Manish Gaunekar, the intensive campaign has discovered 410 new TB patients and has exponentially increased testing in the State.
The 100-day campaign was launched in early December and involves holding ‘Nikshay Shivirs’, where patients are screened, chest X-rays taken with hand-held machines, and awareness talks given by specially trained staff from the health centres in the vicinity where the camps are held.
“So far (72 days), we have conducted 1,798 shivirs,” said Gaunekar, who heads the DHS’ TB Control Programme.
Interestingly, the 410 patients identified in 72 days of this 100-day programme conform to the rate at which the State has been logging new TB cases over the last couple of years”five cases every day.
The goal to eradicate TB by 2025 was set by the Union Health Ministry back in 2023. However, with Goa consistently logging over 100 new TB cases every month, the goal seems unachievable, prompting the leadership in the department to tweak strategy and launch this 100-day intensified campaign to eliminate TB.
Meanwhile, Gaunekar said that to help in the cause, people”especially those deemed vulnerable, such as diabetics, smokers, alcoholics, past TB patients, HIV/AIDS patients, and those in contact with TB patients”should report to health centres and other government facilities to get themselves screened and tested.
Goa, meanwhile, has had a lower number of cases than the national average, having logged 133 cases per one-lakh population in 2023, as against 179 per one-lakh population in the rest of the country in 2023.
The mortality rate among TB patients, however, is relatively higher in Goa compared to the national average, both in 2022 (8.3%) and in 2023 (9.6%). Alcoholism and type-II diabetes among TB patients were the two most contributing factors to this higher mortality rate.
