Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, March 24: Four hundred doctors were specially trained to detect tuberculosis in the state. All vacant posts of lab technicians will be filled up soon. Efforts will be made to reach-out to the unreachable… these were among the announcements made by Health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak at the World TB Day celebrations in the city, Tuesday.
“Once known for inadequate health infrastructure and facilities, Orissa in the past few years has overcome the problems and made remarkable progress in health sector. It is now heading to become a growing health hub giving tough competition to its neighbouring states,” claimed Nayak.
After the launch of the Revised National Tuberculosis Programme (RNTCP), the state health officials have detected 4,81,058 patients and treated 36,421 of them. About 45,777 new cases have been detected in 2014 and were being treated. The case detection has been done with 55 per cent accuracy while the treatment percentage is 87 in the state.
“Cat 4 labs have been introduced in Orissa in 2009 to detect and treat multi-drug resistance TB. With the help of these labs 700 patients have been diagnosed till December 2014 out of which 613 patients were identified for treatment. Similarly, 70 extensively drug resistant TB patients have been successfully treated,” said Sanjukta Sahu, joint director TB cell.
The department has also been planning to accord top priority to the people with HIV/AIDS who have TB too. School children will also be covered under the Rastriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram to detect TB under the National Health Mission (NHM) programme.
The event was attended by principal secretary health department Arti Ahuja, NHM director Roopa Mishra, director health services Chittaranjan Nayak, director public health Kailash Das, director family welfare Nirmala Dei, dean AIIMS Bhubaneswar Bikash Bhatia among others.
