Call for community support to TB patients in Nagaland

June 18, 2022 70 Views No Comment

Our Correspondent
Kohima | June 18

The need to scale-up community support to Tuberculosis (TB) patients in Nagaland was stressed on at the ‘Media sensitization on TB: Working towards TB free Nagaland by 2025’ programme held at the Directorate of Health & Family Welfare on June 17.

Today’s programme is part of the ongoing ‘Sensitization on community support for TB patients’ in Nagaland.

Dr Tiasunup Pongener, State TB Officer – National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) told media persons that he has already corresponded with the Nagaland Baptist Church Council and Indian Red Cross Society, Nagaland state Branch to support some TB patients

Next, he said, there will be sitting with the elected representatives of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly and also write to the Catholic Association of Nagaland (CAN) for their support.

In response to the clarion call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the NTEP under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has geared up to achieve the target of TB Free India by 2025.

Seeking community participation, Dr Pongener stated that the fight against TB requires multi-sectoral response to address social determinants.

The NTEP has rolled out the flagship ‘Community Support to TB Patients – leveraging community and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.’

The broad objectives of this drive is to provide additional patient support to improve treatment outcome of TB patients, augment community involvement in meeting India’s commitment to end TB by 2025 and to leverage CSR activities.

Under this initiative, cooperative societies, corporates, individuals, institutions, Non Governmental Organizations, Faith Based Organizations, elected representatives, political parties and partners have been encouraged to support the efforts to end TB by adopting blocks/districts for accelerating response against TB to complement government efforts.

The type of additional assistance that may be provided by the donors to the consented TB patients include nutritional support, additional investigations for diagnosed TB patients and vocational support.

“The minimum period of commitment for providing additional support to the TB patients shall be one year. It is encouraged that the support may be in kind only,” he stated in a letter.

The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare stated that the expected outputs of the ‘Community Support to TB Patients’ programme included increased involvement of people and communities in TB elimination efforts; increased awareness about symptoms of TB and the services available under the NTEP, reduction in stigma associated with TB; and better nutrition support to TB patients for better treatment outcomes.

During the media sensitization on TB, Dr Collins Zekotso Sono, WHO Consultant (NTEP) Nagaland gave the overview of the TB programme while Dr Palash Talukdar, WHO Medical Consultant, Assam shared the overview on ‘Community support for TB patients.’

Source: https://morungexpress.com/call-for-community-support-to-tb-patients-in-nagaland