India trains SE Asia scientists in TB research, treatment
1 min read . Updated: 20 Feb 2023, 11:14 PM IST
PremiumIndia has expanded its TB elimination drive, with the ICMR training scientists from seven South East Asian Region nations — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Maldives and Sri Lanka—to prevent tuberculosis from spreading from there
NEW DELHI : India has expanded its TB elimination drive, with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) training scientists from seven South East Asian Region (SEAR) nations — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Maldives and Sri Lanka—to prevent tuberculosis from spreading from there.
Support to these countries involves training their scientists in identifying research gaps, treatment, diagnostics, and supplying infrastructure. While these countries have been trying to eradicate TB, the problem varies.
Dr C. Padmapriyadarsini, director, ICMR’s National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) said, “This was more of a learning about how to identify and address any gaps in the TB elimination programme, how to conduct operational research and how we can address these in order to reach TB elimination target in these participating countries. So, it was research and capacity building training in field settings in these countries."
“Some of these countries have high, while a few countries have low burden of TB, but the challenges are like we face in India. For example, Indonesia has high burden of TB and mortality. Maldives has low TB burden but difficulty with migrants and treatment completion. Participants discussed how cross-country collaborative research can be done to address these. Training and activity will continue over the next couple of years to achieve the common goal of TB elimination" said Dr Padmapriyadarsini.
Queries sent to the high commissions of these countries remained unanswered.
India has about 1.35 million TB patients, out of which 12,28,116 are adults and 76,575 are children below 14.
Around 67,025 individuals have registered themselves as Nikshay Mitra adopt TB patients and take care of them.