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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Doctors told to report all tuberculosis patients to govt-GS Mudur

Doctors told to report all tuberculosis patients to govt-GS Mudur

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published Published on May 10, 2012   modified Modified on May 10, 2012

Doctors across India who encounter patients with tuberculosis will have to disclose the identity, age, sex, and address of each patient to local health authorities under an order issued this week by the Union health ministry.

The health ministry said today that it is essential to have complete information as part of its efforts to ensure that patients receive proper diagnosis and therapy and to curb the emergence and spread of drug-resistant TB.

All doctors — whether in the government sector, private practice or with non-government organisations — will have to notify district health authorities about each patient diagnosed with TB and prescribed anti-TB drugs.

“This is the first big step India is taking to understand the true incidence of TB,” said Bobby John, a physician and executive director with Global Health Advocates, a non-government organisation, who has been tracking TB management in India.

India has the world’s largest number of TB patients, with an estimated two million new cases each year. While the health ministry has said its TB control programme treats 70 per cent of all cases, public health officials say, only figures for true incidence of the disease will help confirm this. The notification comes amid widespread concerns that many patients in the private sector may not be receiving appropriate treatment.

Doctors will have to send a list of their TB patients to district health officials each month. Health officials are hoping the notification will allow the government to obtain for the first time reliable estimates of patients being diagnosed and treated in the private sector.

“There is a hope that eventually this notification will also be a step towards building a bridge between TB diagnosis and treatment in the government sector and the private sector,” John told The Telegraph.

The health ministry notification asks doctors to inform health authorities each TB patient’s name, age, sex, complete residential address, a phone number if available, the date of diagnosis and date of initiation of treatment.

Many doctors have cautioned in the past that the health ministry has failed to curb inappropriate prescriptions written for TB patients by doctors in private practice. TB therapy involves a specific combination of four drugs for at least two months, and two drugs for an additional four to ten months. While the doctors attached to the National TB Control Programme deliver the correct regimen to all first-time patients, treatment regimens vary in the private sector.

A study by a team of private doctors three years ago had shown that only five out of 106 private practitioners in Mumbai were able to write down the correct combination of drugs to treat drug-resistant TB.

The Telegraph, 10 May, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120510/jsp/nation/story_15473033.jsp#.T6uOppj5nYQ


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