‘Community should play proactive role in fight against TB’

New Delhi, Sep 10: Community should participate and play a proactive role in the fight against tuberculosis, said Dr Raghuram S Rao, additional DDG, TB division, Directorate General of Health Services.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, Rao said, “It is about getting the community to participate and play a proactive role in the fight against tuberculosis. So, what we are asking from the community is to come forward and adopt a TB patient for a facility and all TB patients within that geography.”
“So, that they are able to provide them with additional nutritional support or social support or any other, additional support that the patient or the family may need,” he said further.
He added, “Whatever the government is doing, those efforts are being done in terms of making sure that the disease is handled but as an issue to the TB to be addressed and it requires the society and the social determinants have to be addressed. For all these things. If the community comes together, it helps and amplifies the effect of the work that the government has been doing.”
On a number of adoptions, he said, “this was first started off in Uttar Pradesh, as honourable Governor Anandiben Patel, first started adopting children with both the staff of the Raj Bhavan itself, motivating them to do that. So we have some 1000 or reported once from the management. There’s a lot of data entry that is still ongoing in the field. So we’ll have better figures maybe by the end of next week.” (ANI)