Puducherry first one to include TB patients under Family Adoption Programme

Puducherry has become the first one in India to integrate tuberculosis (TB) patients under the initiative of “Family Adoption programme" (FAP). Under the National Medical Commission’s initiative, medical students will adopt families as part of their community outreach.

When students adopt a family, they screen all members for tuberculosis as a part of the routine health monitoring and follow them for the next four years.

“If any member of the adopted family is found to be infected with TB, the students assist them with diagnosis and treatment. The NMC has made it mandatory for medical students to adopt at least one family,” Dr Kavitha Vasudevan, head of community medicine, Indira Gandhi Medical College, Puducherry, said.

In its first phase, Puducherry has declared eight villages TB free and will follow it for the next few years. Health officials have targeted 40 villages to declare them as TB free by the end of the year.

The UT is increasingly relying on molecular diagnostics CBNAAT, which is the gold standard of TB testing recognised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Indian Council of Medical Research.

In the UT, 100 per cent patients received an upfront molecular test, registering a 136 per cent increase in TB testing since 2015. This means patients are now receiving quicker and more accurate tests and signifies that treatment time is saved by the health department.

In fact, in terms of diagnostic infrastructure, Puducherry’s Intermediate Reference Laboratory (IRL) based at the Government Hospital for Chest Diseases has been ranked number 1 for overall performance of lab activities. It caters to not just patients in Puducherry but serves Tamil Nadu and beyond – with a capacity of conducting 1.2 lakhs tests annually.

Health