Aashwasan Campaign Tribal TB Initiative
Source : PIB
GS II : Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate

What is discussed under Aashwasan Campaign Tribal TB Initiative?

1. About Tuberculosis (TB)
2. WHO Initiatives

Why in News ?

Recently an aggressive case-finding effort to identify TB cases among tribal communities over the previous six months, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Central TB Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have now decided on 75 tribal districts where targeted interventions will be carried out over the coming few months with the goal of eradicating TB from them.

Key Facts

• The campaign to detect TB cases across 174 tribal districts started this January under the Aashwasan Campaign.
• It allowed for door-to-door screening in over 68,000 villages.
• After a verbal screening of more than 1.03 crore persons in these villages, official statistics revealed that 3,82,811 people had been suspected of having TB.

March 24th is World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, and the theme for 2017 is “Unite to End TB.”

• Over 2.79 lakh of these had their samples tested for TB; 9,971 of these had positive results and were started on treatment in accordance with government policy.
• These data’s showed tribal populations are more vulnerable to TB and other respiratory diseases compared to other population groups. 

Government strategy to control TB in these areas

A three-pronged strategy for the 75 Districts was presented, to be centered on:

• Enhancing understanding of TB, its symptoms, spread, and treatment methods; addressing stigma and fear related to TB; and maintaining contact with community influencers who have been identified during this process for community mobilisation.
• Improving the delivery of TB services by enhancing the TB testing and diagnosis infrastructure.
• Decreasing the risk of transmission and decreasing the pool of infections through active case finding campaigns

About Tuberculosis (TB)

• Tuberculosis is a potentially serious infectious bacterial disease that mainly affects the lungs.

  

• How it Spread ? : The bacteria that cause TB are spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Symptoms

Most people infected with the bacteria that cause tuberculosis don’t have symptoms.

• • When symptoms occur, they usually include
    • Cough
    • Weight loss
    • Night sweats
    • Fever.

Treatment

• • Treatment isn’t always required for those without symptoms.
  • Patients with active symptoms will require a long course of treatment involving multiple antibiotics.
• TB is a major public health challenge in the South-East Asia (SEA) Region of WHO.
• Over 43% of the global TB incidence and half the TB associated mortality is from SEA Region.
• Six of 11 countries in the Region are on the high TB burden country list.

Initiatives by India 

• India, with 27% of the world’s TB cases, has the most cases of any country in the world followed by China.
• In India, 7.9% of TB-related deaths are caused by tobacco.
• India also has a high burden of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).
• In 2016, the nation lost nearly 423,000 TB patients a third of the world’s 1.4 million TB death toll.
• India loses Rs 2.2 lakh crore every year because of TB.
• Launched the TB Free India campaign
  • Aims to eliminate tuberculosis by 2025, five years ahead of the target set by the UN’s sustainable development goals.
  • It’s a commitment that’s ambitious and signals Prime Minister Modi’s commitment to fighting the diseases in India, which has the highest burden of TB in the world. 
• National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP)
  • Functions as a  component of the National Health Mission (NHM) and provides technical and managerial leadership to anti-tuberculosis activities in the country.
  • National strategic plan for tuberculosis elimination 2017-2025 : RNTCP has released a National strategic plan for tuberculosis 2017-2025 (NSP) for the control and elimination of TB in India by 2025.
  • According to the NSP TB elimination have been integrated into the four strategic pillars of “Detect – Treat – Prevent – Build” (DTPB).
• Nikshay Poshan Yojana (NPY)
  • It is a direct benefit transfer (DBT) programme that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched in April 2018 to provide nutritional support to TB patients.
  • The scheme is a centrally sponsored scheme under National Health Mission (NHM).
  • This scheme is implemented across all States and UTs in India.
  • All TB patients notified on or after 1st April 2018 including all existing TB patients under treatment are eligible to receive incentives.
  • The patient must be registered\notified on the NIKSHAY portal.

Where India Lagging?

• One of the reasons for the missing TB cases could be a lack of testing for drug resistance.
• The incentives programme still has a long way to go, as per experts and the 2019 JMM ( Joint Monitoring Mission (JMM) Report 2019).
• Only two-thirds of people living with tuberculosis benefitted from the Union government’s Nikshay Poshan Yojana (NPY), sole nutrition support scheme, in 2021.

WHO Initiatives

• To establish a Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for TB (STAG-TB).
• Provide guidance on strategic directions, technical issues and policy formulation for the TB work in the Region.
• The formation of group is timed with the ongoing work on Regional Strategic Plan towards ending TB 2021-25.
• The main goal of the STAG-TB is to provide independent review and technical input to the TB control policies, strategies and activities of the WHO Regional Office for the South-East Asia, facilitate the regional adoption and adaptation of the updated global recommendations.
• WHO SEARO High-Level Meeting for Renewed TB Response, India emphasized the fact that the South-East Asia Region bears the highest burden of TB disease among all six Regions.

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