CM launches TB-free drive in Gurgaon

Sumedha Sharma

Tribune news Service

Gurgaon, November 20

Out to make Haryana a Tuberculosis (TB) free state, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar along with Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan launched a ‘TB-free Haryana’ mission by flagging off two mobile vans for the mission.

Aiming to cover 21 districts, the mission in its first phase will be launched in Rewari, Gurgaon, Mewat, Palwal, Mahendergarh, Faridabad and Jhajjar, where the vans equipped with chest X-Ray machines and other equipment will go around testing prospective patients to ensure their early diagnosis.

“An average of about 4 lakh people die of TB every year in India. In Haryana, the figure is 2,000. We have implemented a modified national TB control programme where 2 lakh suspected TB cases were being examined in hospitals of the state, out of which 40,000 patients were given medicines. As many as 119 TB units, 260 microscopic centres and 8,245 DOTS centres were functional under the programme at the state level, but to make the state TB free, we need to take its diagnostic to their doorsteps,” said Khattar .

The initiative was first successfully launched in Maharashtra. And now Haryana wants to take it up under the PPP model. He said a trauma centre at the distance of 50-60 km on highways passing through the state was also being planned so that the number of deaths in accidents could be reduced.

Amitabh Bachan said as he suffered from the disease in 2000, he felt attached to the cause. He said he was willing to be associated with the ‘Beti Bachao’ programme in the state.