Mandatory Notification of Tuberculosis
The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India has declared TB as a mandatory notifiable disease with immediate effect.
In order to ensure proper TB diagnosis and case management, reduce TB transmission and address the problems of emergence of spread of Drug Resistant-TB, it is essential to have complete information of all TB cases. For the purpose of this notification, healthcare providers will include clinical establishments run or managed by the Government (including local authorities), private or NGO sectors and/or individual practitioners.
Notification of TB cases by all healthcare providers will help patients with better access to quality diagnosis and treatment. This would facilitate early diagnosis, rational treatment, prevention of complications, drug resistance and reduce deaths due to TB. This notification system will also help the healthcare providers to offer better linkages for quality diagnostic and treatment services to the TB patients. Further it will facilitate the National TB Control Programme to realistically estimate TB disease burden, plan resources and control measures commensurate with the actual burden of disease for larger interest of the public and nation as a whole.
TB continues to be a major public health problem accounting for substantial morbidity and mortality in the country. Early diagnosis and complete treatment of TB is the corner-stone of TB prevention and control strategy. Inappropriate diagnosis and irregular/incomplete treatment with anti-TB drugs may contribute to complications, disease spread and emergence of Drug Resistant TB.
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