Mumbai: Health ministry chalks up blueprint to curb TB

A team of doctors deputed by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has come up with a blueprint to curb tuberculosis cases in Mumbai, a top municipal official from the city said. "The pilot project will be adopted across the country after it succeeds in Mumbai," Additional Municipal Commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar told PTI.

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The project, to be carried out under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, would be integrated with the basic public health machinery, she said.

Accordingly, contractual workers under the programme, health posts and dispensary staff would visit every household to find out TB patients. "Once patients are found they can be brought to the dispensary or to the directly observed therapy centre for further treatment, which will be given free of cost," she said.

Mhaiskar said the five-point malaria model, which has proved vital will also be implemented to bring down the TB cases in the metropolis. She said upgradation of the 1000-bed TB hospital in the city is also in pipeline.
"We propose to develop it as the Centre of Excellence for TB cure and control. The hospital will have a state of the art operation theatre and laboratory by next year," she said.

Twenty-four district TB officers will be chosen and sent to Bengaluru for training, she said.