Himachal Pradesh Health minister Vipin Parmar launched the third round of the “Active Case Finding” campaign on Monday, from Civil Hospital Palampur for Kangra, Bilaspur and Hamirpur district.
He flagged off motorcycle borne Senior Treatment supervisors of various blocks for the Revised National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme for Kangra district.
In Kangra, during the 3rd round from 15 to 30 January, total 1,53,454 persons from the vulnerable population, high risk area in the district will be screened through house to house visit for detecting or ruling out TB, he said, adding that 654 field teams have been constituted for this task in Kangra district.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Kangra, Dr RS Rana stated that the district has done all the necessary preparation for the smooth roll out of Active TB Case finding in these districts.
The teams are trained and additional logistics has been arranged in adequate quantities across all designated labs in the districts.
This campaign will also carried out on holidays (except 26 January) to complete the task said District Health officer Dr Rajesh Guleri, adding that to spread the awareness among the masses across the mapped out areas, Department will be distributing IEC handbills in the areas of campaign.
District TB Officer Dr RK Sood said that vulnerable groups being targeted include slum, difficult to reach villages, hamlets, prisons inmates, mine workers, villages with known higher case load, Old Age homes, stone crusher workers, tribal school hostels, construction site workers, tea garden workers, populations groups with known high malnutrition, refugee camps, villages seeking care from traditional healers, night shelters, high risk groups for HIV, homeless, weaving and glass industrial workers, street children, cotton mill workers, orphanages, unorganisedlabour, homes for destitute and asylums.
Under the National Strategic plan 2017-2015 to end TB, the government is launching a special campaign called “Active Case Finding” in High TB burden districts across India.