India To Launch TB Awareness Program in Six States
India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will launch a national tuberculosis awareness program in six states, Sanjeev Kumar, consultant with the government's central TB division, said Tuesday during a five-day workshop on TB detection and diagnosis, the Hindustan Times/Yahoo! India News reports. The program will be implemented in the Indian states of Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.
According to Kumar, the number of TB cases in India is increasing in part because people are not aware of the disease's symptoms. Kumar said there are "a lot of myths" about TB, adding that "people do not discuss" the disease. In addition, TB often goes undetected until it develops into an advanced stage because "people do not take its symptoms seriously in the beginning," Kumar said. He added that the new campaign aims to create "an effective communication channel" to raise awareness of TB and "frame a mode where citizens can discuss their problems and specialists would help them in getting rid of the myths" that surround TB. Ramesh Pokhriyal, health minister of Uttarakhand state, said that the program must strengthen communication channels to deliver messages about TB risk factors effectively. In addition, modes of communication should be "region-specific" by using local languages and mediums, Pokhriyal said. He added that the participation of the media, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions would contribute to the campaign's success.
According to Pokhriyal, about 3,000 TB-related deaths occur daily in India, primarily because of a lack of awareness about the disease. Pokhriyal said that data might not reflect the actual number of TB cases in the country because many people are unaware that they have the disease until it is in an advanced stage. He added that national surveys "depend on" tracking TB patients with later stages of the disease "and not early stages" (Hindustan Times/Yahoo! India News, 1/28).
