By Our Reporter
SHILLONG:Underlining the need to create awareness in the rural areas on tuberculosis and its effect on the death rate in the state, State Health Additional Secretary, MR Synrem said Government alone cannot tackle this problem thereby partnering with various organisations is a step towards ensuring a healthy lifestyle of the people in the rural areas.
Speaking at a four-day state level training of TOTs for NGO/CBO/PP –Akshya Project organised by the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI) at Hotel Yalana here on Tuesday, Synrem pointed out that the state government alone cannot reach the grass root level due to the constraints of manpower in the department. “With the presence of organisations like the Faith based organisations, NGOs and SHG functioning at various villages of the state can really help in bringing down the death rate caused due to TB”, added Synrem.
He lamented the lack of awareness as it was noticeable from the hesitance of the people to come forward to get themselves tested in various testing centres.
Meanwhile, representative from the State TB programme, Dr G Wahlang said even today, TB is still the number one killing disease though there has been ample of medicines designed to cure this disease. “The main reason behind this increase is the unconcerned attitude of the people, they take the deadly disease very lightly and fail to see the effects of the disease thereby leading to an increase to the death rate in the state”, asserted Dr Wahlang.
The main goal of the Akshya project is to decrease morbidity and mortality rate due to drug resistant TB (CDR-TB), to improve access to quality TB care and control services through enhanced civil society participation and to reach to areas where there are no TB programmes.
It was mentioned that till date the CMAI has conducted over 473 community meetings all over the state. “There is a need to bridge a gap between the Government of India and the people as most of them don’t know of the available schemes or protection measures given by the government”, said a member of CMAI.
Around 10 participants from all over the state mainly church leaders and community volunteers participated in the training programme.