The Deccan Herald 17.08.2010
Poor feedback hampering tuberculosis cure rate
Bangalore, August 16, DH News Service:
The Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) under the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Monday pointed to the lack of co-ordination and poor feedback from other districts and states on the TB cases.
Of the 7,000 new cases that the RNTCP received, 900 cases are transferred and nearly 4,500 cases are referred to other districts or states annually. But, the feedback from other states and the districts was discouraging.
BBMP RNTCP held a tri-state/district meet at the Urban Health Research and Training Institute in the City to establish a robust system to address the issue.
The RNTCP officers from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu took part
in the meeting.
According to the BBMP RNTCP records, while 255 cases were transferred (initially treated here but later transferred to the place of the patient’s residence) out of Bangalore Urban, it received feedback on only 144 cases. Similarly, Raichur, Bellary, Gulbarga, Bidar, Kodagu, Haveri, Koppal, Bijapur and Gadag have not given any feedback to the TB unit in the City.
Situation no better
The situation is no better in the cases transferred to other states. Broadway unit Medical officer (TB Control) Dr Khamarunissa said of the 630 cases transferred outside the State, the City unit received feedback on only 31 cases.
She said: “We have transferred 44 cases to Tamil Nadu but they got back to us only in five cases. Andhra Pradesh did not back to us on any of the 31 cases.
“If we don’t get these feedback, we cannot achieve better cure rate.”
Bangalore Urban District TB officer Dr Nadeem said there was lack of co-ordination among the neighbouring states.
“The states from where we get more migration are West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and
Jharkhand. Despite the fact, we have 83 per cent cure rate,” he said.
Dr H R Raveendra Reddy, RNTCP medical consultant, World Health Organisation (WHO), suggested increase in use of electronic transfer of data to various centres, as around 40 per cent of the patients diagnosed with TB in Bangalore are from outside the City.
Inter-state meetings
He saId inter-state meetings such as the one held last year resulted in the feedback going up from mere 20 per cent to over 90 per cent.
An Immediate Research Lab (IRL) to treat multi-drug resistant cases and DOTS-Plus centre at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases will be set up by November.
The centre expects to get about 50 cases from Bangalore (Urban and Rural), Kolar and Tumkur.
