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64 pc people with TB symptoms did not seek medical help: Survey

New Delhi, Mar 24 (PTI) A national survey conducted from 2019 to 2021 by the Union government has found that 64 per cent people with tuberculosis symptoms did not seek healthcare services.

According to the National TB Prevalence Survey in India whose report was released on Thursday on the occasion of World TB Day, the reasons for those not seeking medical care included ignoring the symptoms (68 per cent), not recognising the symptoms as TB (18 per cent), and self-treatment (12 per cent).

The survey also revealed that the prevalence of microbiologically confirmed pulmonary TB (PTB) among those aged 15 years and above in India was 316 per lakh population, with the highest PTB prevalence of 534 per lakh in Delhi and the lowest prevalence of 115 per lakh in Kerala.

The prevalence of PTB infection among the surveyed in India was 21.7 per cent, the report pointed out.

According to the survey, the prevalence of all forms of TB for all ages in India was 312 per lakh population for the year 2021. The highest prevalence for all forms of TB was 747 per lakh in Delhi and the lowest was 137 in Gujarat.

The prevalence of all forms of TB among population aged 15 years and above was 31.4 per cent. The survey found that COVID-19 has impacted the community level chest X-ray abnormality in general and would have impacted the TB prevalence.

The survey enumerated 4,85,010 people and assessed them for eligibility for participation in the survey, of which 3,54,541 (73.1 per cent) were found eligible. Of those eligible, 3,22,480 (90.9 per cent) participants consented for the survey and were screened by at least one method.

“A considerable amount of prevalent TB cases were contributed by patients with past history of TB. Hence, NTEP (National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme) needs close follow-up of patients completing treatment for early detection of recurrent TB and plan interventions for preventing recurrence of TB. NTEP needs to prioritise scale up of molecular test and chest X-ray screening under programme conditions for increasing the efficiency of case finding and early diagnosis of TB,” the report said.

The survey also found that the prevalence-to-notification ratio of pulmonary TB for people aged 15 years and above in India and the state groups is about 2.84. The highest ratio was observed in Chhattisgarh and the lowest was observed in Gujarat.

“We need to prioritize the interventions in high prevalent states and plan for elimination in low prevalent states,” the report recommended.

More interventions for men like occupation screening for TB, nutritional interventions for malnourished, old age screening and interventions for promoting smoking and alcohol cessation needs to be scaled up for better control of PTB to address the factors which have more contribution towards the PTB burden, it said. PTI PLB PLB KVK CJ CJ

This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.


Source: The Print

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