key: cord-0930069-vue0jzvf
authors: Nagaraja, Sharath Burugina; Kelamane, Santosha; Kunjathur, Shilapashree Madhava; Gurum, Sanathkumar
title: Uprooted by COVID pandemic: National TB Elimination Programme needs acceleration!
date: 2020-08-28
journal: Indian J Tuberc
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijtb.2020.08.014
sha: 636b34f701039bf7b760cfbdbf557855dca51e01
doc_id: 930069
cord_uid: vue0jzvf

• Implementation of NTEP in India has slowed down in India due to the ongoing COVID pandemic. • Apprehensive lies among the health staff and patients to attend health facilities. • Bolder and Innovative strategies need to be applied by the programme to accelerate implementation at the earliest.

In India, the global pandemic of COVID first made its presence during March 2020. (1) The country has taken several measures to contain the spread of pandemic which includes lock-down of the entire country for nearly forty days. As such, all the vibrant lifesaving activities of National Health programme had come to a record low levels. The country being one of the highest tuberculosis burden globally had committed to eliminate TB by 2025. A remarkable dent has been caused by COVID pandemic on the ongoing TB control activities across the country. The routine programmatic activities like case-finding, initiation of treatment, follow-up and contact tracing is worst affected. Anecdotal evidences suggest that the country has registered only 40-50% of TB cases when compared to the same period during last year. The well-known reasons include involvement of the entire health systems in the region for containment and management of COVID patients and at the same time the community is skeptical about using the health facilities with the fear of contracting the corona virus infection when they approach health facility while the rapid TB diagnostic services were completely stopped during the period. In this context, we discuss the strategies that programme should adopt that will help programme to gain momentum to reach the elimination target. The programme should develop newer effective and innovative mechanisms for teleconsultations, sputum collection and delivery of anti-TB drugs with an inbuilt enhanced supervision and monitoring tools. This strategy can be effectively implemented in urban areas and it is expected to bring down the patients visit to health facilities by 80%. However, the challenge for the programme is to make bold investments in technologies which are swift and sustainable. Fourth, the programme should consider operational research to study the impact of corona virus infection on TB and its associated comorbidities and their treatment outcomes. To conclude, tuberculosis is a preventable and curable J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f

Annexure (i) Ministry of Home Affairs (including NDMA, NDRF, CAPFs, Bureau of Immigration, Land Port Authority of India etc

Government of India. Advisory from Central TB Division

Khare A. Digital Learning Initiative