HYDERABAD: Telangana recorded 71,482 cases of Tuberculosis last year according to the ‘India Tuberculosis Report 2020’ released on Wednesday by the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi. Of these cases, 2,406 are children. The report highlights need for Telangana to ramp up its efforts in the fight against TB. According to the numbers mentioned in the report under ‘Patients home visit by field staff ’, Telangana recorded one of the lowest home visits by the health department staff to households of patients among all states. Among households of TB patients treated in public sector, it was just 30 percent and among the patients treated in private sector it was a meager 13 percent.

When it came to ‘Active case finding’, Telangana screened 31 percent of the 75,60,886 people identified as vulnerable in the state, of which 1.4 percent people were tested. The contact tracing and administration of Isoniazid Chemoprophylaxis among eligible children was 70 percent, which also needs to be increased to prevent TB among vulnerable children. Gujarat, adjudged one of the top-3 performing states, screened 77 percent of the vulnerable population.

Testing for Diabetes important for TB cases

The report stated that there was also a need to ramp up testing to know the Diabetes status among TB infected patients. In Telangana state, the status was known only among 45 per cent of the TB cases reported