‘10% of Bareilly population to be checked during 11-day TB drive’

BAREILLY: The health department here has constituted 196 teams for active case finding of tuberculosis patients. The drive, to be held from October 12 to 23, is the fifth round of active case finding in the district.

According to officials, the first round was conducted in June 2018 and 93 cases were detected while 104 cases were found in second round in August 2018. Two rounds of drive have already been undertaken this year and 107 and 134 new TB patients were detected respectively.

The data available with the health department stated that 11,033 TB patients were registered from January to August this year. Of these, 3,995 patients are undergoing treatment at private hospitals. In 2018, the district had 11,692 TB patients, including 3,176 which were registered at private hospitals. In 2016, Bareilly had 8,141 TB patients which increased to 9,605 in 2017.

District tuberculosis officer Dr Sudhir Garg said, “We will be targeting 4,74,732 people which is 10% of the district’s population in the TB drive, which is starting on Saturday. A team comprising three members will conduct a dour-to-door survey to check if any person has TB symptoms. The sputum test will be conducted for suspected cases. As the aim of the central government is to eradicate TB in the country by 2025, we are conducting active case finding to find out persons who have TB but are not undergoing treatment.”

Garg said if any person alerts health department about a suspected TB case and he or she is tested positive, the informer will get a reward of Rs 500 per case. Even TB patient gets Rs 500 per month for nutrition.