TPT to be given to those who come in contact with TB patients

Kanpur: TB Preventive Therapy (TPT) will now be given to every person who comes in contact with a tuberculosis patient. Till now, this therapy is being given only to the children of the TB patient’s family who are under 5 years of age.
The object of the TPT is to control TB infection in the district under the programme ‘Make India TB free till 2025’ for which the health officers and workers have been trained.
Chief medical officer Dr Alok Ranjan said that lungs get infected with pulmonary TB which may spread to others. TPT, he said, would be given to people who have come in contact with pulmonary TB patients. Under the scheme, anti-tuberculosis medicines would be given to the family members of tuberculosis patients for six months according to their age and weight, the CMO said and added till now this therapy was being given only to children below five years of age, but now people of all age groups have been included in it.
District Tuberculosis Officer AP Mishra said that TPT would be given to those people whose family members had been tested positive for TB through CB NOT, TrueNat and microscopy tests. Some more tests of such people would also be done to confirm whether they have TB symptoms or not, he said.
“According to an estimate, 40 percent of the total population of India has TB bacteria, which grows very fast in the body because of malnutrition, diseases and other reasons, due to which the infection of TB present in the body turns into tuberculosis", said district programme coordinator Rajiv Saxena.
TB therapy is done so that these bacteria do not grow and people do not become victims of tuberculosis. The aim of this therapy is to reduce TB infection, he added.