Center govt awards gold medal to JK districts under National TB elimination program

JAMMU : Jammu Kashmir Health and Medical Education department’s efforts towards TB elimination received due recognition with three districts of the Union Territory Anantnag, Pulwama and Kupwara receiving gold medal under the Sub National Certification for TB Elimination program in the country.

The activity was undertaken by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India.

A total of 8 districts from 33 states and Union Territories were awarded gold medal with J&K topping the list having got three districts awarded. The five other districts included Malappuram and Wayanad districts of Kerala, Khargone of Madhya Pradesh, Ahmednagar of Maharashtra and Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal. All these districts have shown 60-80 percent reduction in TB cases in the past five years. The fourth entry from the UT, Baramulla got the bronze medal under this program.

Speaking on this achievement, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Medical Education (H&ME), Vivek Bhardwaj, said, “Gold medal to three districts of Jammu & Kashmir reflects the hard work put in by the district administration and healthcare officials towards elimination of TB from the Union Territory. We are aligned with the Government of India’s vision to eliminate tuberculosis from the country by 2025. This recognition of our efforts will motivate the grass root teams associated with the tuberculosis elimination program to work with greater enthusiasm.”

Pertinently, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has rolled out the initiative of Sub-national certification of progress towards TB Free Status in 2020-21 to track the progress made towards achieving the goal of total TB elimination by 2025. The verification of the claims submitted by State, UT and districts were completed by the ICMR-National Institute of Research in TB (ICMR-NIRT) during February – March 2021, in collaboration with ICMR National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE), Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) besides WHO India.

The field level verification of prerequisites through review of program record and patient interviews, verification of drug consumption data in public sector and drug sale data in private sector, through review of records and interactions with private practitioners and chemists were conducted for submitted claims. These steps were supported with district level survey for estimating TB incidence and under reporting in randomly selected villages in the districts.