75,863 TB cases detected in 2022

Parveen Arora

Karnal, March 10

To eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025 from the state, the Health Department conducted aggressive surveillance activities to detect, notify and treat the disease. This helped in detecting 75,863 cases in 2022, said the data of the Health Department.

“A total of 75,863 TB cases have been identified and put on treatment under the National TB Elimination Programme in Haryana in 2022, while in 2023, up to February end, 7,558 TB cases have been identified,” said Dr Rajesh Raju, State TB Officer (STO), Panchkula.

Besides, 2,095 cases were diagnosed as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in 2022, and 297 MDR TB cases in 2023, which was a major concern for the department, as they had become resistant to first line drugs —isoniazid and rifampicin— the data said.

Dr Raju further said they had successfully treated and cured 1,59,140 TB patients in 2021, while 3,249 patients had died due to the disease in 2021.

“We are working to overcome the challenges such as incomplete treatment of patients, frequent interruptions in treatment, indiscriminate use of anti-TB drugs by the patients by launching active case finding campaign, vulnerability mapping survey, offering upfront molecular testing and universal drugs sensitivity testing, so that we can achieve our target by 2025,” he added.

The state had made considerable progress in recent years by implementing newer diagnostic technologies –CBNAAT, TRUNAAT, LPA, liquid culture for faster and more accurate diagnosis of all TB cases, Dr Raju added.

The introduction of all oral shorter regimens for MDR and XDR TB cases and the implementation of the “Nikshay Poshan Yojana” to provide direct cash benefit to the TB patients in their bank accounts were also helping them, he said.

“The department has two intermediate reference labs (IRLs) in Karnal and the PGIMS, Rohtak, to offer line probe assay (LPA) and liquid culture testing services to drug-resistant TB cases,” he added.