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Dr. Tiasunup Pongener, RNTCP state programme officer, along with districts TB officers during the 4th quarter review meeting of the Revised National TB Control Programme on March 14 in Kohima.[/caption]
Dimapur, March 15 (EMN): With a target to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025 as envisaged by the Government of India, state would observe the World TB Day on March 24.
This was announced during the 4th quarter review meeting of the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) on March 14 in the conference hall of the directorate of health and family welfare, which was attended by all the district TB officers, senior treatment supervisors (STSs) and Nikshay operators along with state TB cell staff.
To achieve the target of eliminating TB by 2025, RNTCP has initiated many activities such as Nikshay Poshan Yojana through DBT (district benefit transfer) for all TB patients, universal drug susceptibility tests, active case finding, TB collaborative activities with other sectors.
In order to successfully implement all these activities, all the speakers have stressed on the importance of comprehensive planning and sincere effort of all categories of staff at various levels.
Dr. Apichetla Amer, RNTCP assistant programme officer, delivered the welcome address.
WHO consultant for RNTCP Dr. Palash Talukdar, while making the state performance presentation for 2018, exhorted the district staff to update all NIKSHAY entries of all indicators such as TB co-morbidities, contact tracing, treatment outcome, U-DST etc so that a clearer picture is portrayed of the state’s achievement.
Dr. Tiasunup Pongener, RNTCP state programme officer, led the discussion and adopted a resolution on some key issues. It decided that all pending bank account seeding of all beneficiaries should be completed by April 30 and all other backlog entries on NIKSHAY to be done by March 30. He also urged the attendees to be regular in their respective place of posting and discharge their duties to the best of their abilities.
Other agenda for discussion during the meeting included CBNAAT utilisation, World TB Day activities, incentive for treatment supporters etc.
