Health Department officials during the screening drive to trace TB active cases in the district. Tribune Photo

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 17

The Health Department’s “TB Harega Desh Jeetega” campaign for finding active cases of tuberculosis would serve the double purpose this year. It will not only help in finding the active TB cases but also the Covid patients. Around four lakh people in the district would be screened during the month long drive.

The campaign focusses on house-to-house screening of people with special focus in vulnerable population and intensified bi-directional TB-Covid screening.

Dr Ashish Chawla, District TB Officer, said 163 teams have been formed and each team will be visiting 40 houses and screen 200 people every day.

Dr Chawla added that this year the campaign will be different as the world is going through a pandemic. Both the diseases have overlapping symptoms so Covid screening would go along with TB and teams have been trained for the same.

“New column has been included in the form which will be filled during the campaign. Details about Covid symptoms and the time from which the symptoms are persistent, all will be included in the form. This way, the campaign will serve the double purpose as it will not only help in finding the active TB cases but also the Covid cases,” he said.

Elaborating further on Covid suspected patients, Dr Chawla said the suspected Covid patients would be asked to get their test done and the information regarding the same would be sent to District Epidemologist for the follow up.

“The campaign could not be initiated in March due to the pandemic and now it started from December 15 and will continue till January 14. The target population include prison inmates, old age homes, orphanages, construction site workers, mine workers, slum dwellers, food handlers, dialysis patients and OPD patients of district hospital through cough corner,” he said. There were 12,000 TB patients in the district this year of which around 7,000 are active.

TB Symptoms