WORLD TB DAY – Brig. K.G. Behl (Retd.)

WORLD TB DAY

TB used to be a dreaded disease with no cure, but now it is curable and can be completely removed. Of course it has to be detected in time and treated

Brig. K.G. Behl (Retd.)

Vice President, Indology Foundation 

World TB Day is celebrated as an annual event  by the people world over  to  create awareness about the basic and essential knowledge of tuberculosis, causes, prevention and cure of this disease so that it could be prevented and eradicated from the world.  It is very necessary to make aware people of all groups  and  fields  about this epidemic disease so that they may take all necessary precautions.  All the people at workplace or at home should be encouraged  to maintain their health taking precautions needed to prevent Tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis  is an airborne disease caused  by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (which generally affects the lungs) and kills around 4000 people every day. It gets transmitted from the infected person to another weak person through the droplets formed in the throat or lungs. According to the report, it was notified  that most infected people were from the south-east Asia (34% of the global case). 8.7 million new cases were raised whereas 1.4 million of the people died of TB (64000 deaths of children) in the year 2011. Most of the death cases belong to the low and middle income group including poor communities and vulnerable groups.

People must known that it is a completely curable disease at very low-cost through the DOTS treatment administered by the government. Its treatments and diagnostic tests should be accessible by each and every person affected by the tuberculosis all over the world so that it could be totally eliminated.

World TB Day celebration provides a big opportunity to all the people to get aware about the causes and precautions of TB. It mobilizes the political and social authorities for further progress towards the disease prevention for the effective reduction in the TB cases and death rate in the coming years. Since 1990, the mortality rate of TB has decreased by 40% all over the world. Invention of various new TB tools has occurred for rapid diagnostic tests of TB. All this have become possible only because of this awareness campaign.

The theme of the World TB Day celebration of the year 2017 is “Unite to End TB”.

Infections communicated disease  are those that can be passed between persons by means of airborne droplets from a cough or a sneeze. Tiny organism such as  viruses, bacteria, fungi and worms can produce infectious disease.  Whatever the causative agent it survives in the person it infects and is passed on to another. Sometimes, a disease   producing organism gets into a person who shows no symptoms of the disease.  The asymptomatic carrier can then pass disease  on to someone else without even knowing he has it. As such one has to be very careful to get the symptoms diagnosed properly so that those are  detected in time and action taken to cure.

World TB Day is celebrated every year by the health organizations, NGO’s, government and non-government organizations including other health agencies to raise the awareness among common public all across the world about the epidemic disease, tuberculosis by organizing the variety of campaign related activities such as debates on TB prevention and cure, aware ceremonies for the organizations involved in the prevention and fight against TB, photo exhibitions showcasing images in order to raise awareness of TB, charity events for fund raising required to control TB and lots of activities associated with the disease prevention and cure. Active participation is  required by the all group people, communities and government agencies to work together to broadcast the real messages to each and every person live in the world.

The theme of the World TB Day celebration of the year 2017 is “UNITE TO END TB”.

According to one of the recent studies Indian TB controlling programme saving 7.75 million lives by reduced transmission of TB, but even this is too slow to meet the World Sustainable Goals by 2020 and TB by 2035. As such India must adopt a national strategic plan for eradication of complete eradication of  TB.

It has been reported that patients are hesitant to take treatment as they do not want get themselves labeled  with TB.  Moreover they are scared of high economic cost of treatment since it is accompanied with  a nourishing diet which itself is quite expensive. The Govt. provides treatment which is quite costly but do not make any provision for the expensive  diet, which is equally costly and which patient cannot afford. As such it is considered that those who suffer from TB should not only given medicines by Govt. but should also provide diet, which is equally necessary to eradicate  the disease.  It has been observed that in majority of  cases where persons  suffering from  TB  even after taking full course of treatment do not cured as they cannot afford the expensive diet which is also essential.

It has also been observed that this disease quickly affects those persons who are physically weak and are under nourished, specially the children, since, most of the death cases belong to the low and middle income group including poor communities and vulnerable groups. It is not only the normal good diet but it needs to be supplemented by food which is essentially required to sustain the treatment. The theme of the World TB Day celebration of  the year 2017 is  “Unite to End Tuberclosis”  which not only means that all people should unite to end TB but efforts should be made by all concerned to unite to provide the patients treatment needed by them in all respects, which means medicines as well as diet. Efforts have to be made by Govt., the health organizations, NGO’s, government and non-government organizations including other health agencies to raise funds to meet the challenge.