Best Lawyers in Chandigarh Every fourth TB case in state is from Ludhiana

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 28

Ludhiana district is the worst affected in the state when it comes to tuberculosis (TB). Every fourth patient of TB comes from the district.

As per the latest data of the National TB Control Programme, from January to October, a total of 49,060 cases of TB have been reported jointly from both private and government hospitals.

Out of these, 26,973 cases (55 per cent of the total) were reported from just districts including Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala.

Interestingly, the population of these four districts is just 36 per cent of the entire state.

Ludhiana tops the chart with 12,633 cases in 10 months, which is 26 per cent of the total cases. Experts said the four districts have a large population of migrants.

Dr Jastej Singh, State Programme Officer, TB, said in all, the four districts had better infrastructure for treatment and diagnosis of TB. “So obviously the cases from these districts will be higher. Another reason is these districts have a large population of migrants.”

Fathegatrh Sahib district with 504 cases, SBS Nagar with 610 cases, Barnala with 612, Kapurthala 691 and Rupnagar with 837 cases figure at the bottom of the list.

Since the tuberculosis has been declared a notifiable disease, which means both private and government doctors are bound to report the case to the government.

Over 37,000 cases have been reported from the government sector and around 12,000 cases from private sector.

Besides, over 700 multi-drug resistant TB cases have also been reported.

A recent study has found that tuberculosis was the biggest killer in the state’s jails. A study on custodial deaths conducted by forensic medicine department of the Amritsar Medical College has found that TB is the biggest killer.

The cause of death of 135 inmates in Punjab jails were studied over the past two years and it was found that TB was the cause of death in 22 per cent cases.

In August, the Health Department had flagged off 81 scooters, which visit houses of TB patients to enquire about their well-being and to ensure that they were being given essential medicines in a proper way.

Besides, these field workers are supposed to get information about any suspected TB patient in patient’s house or nearby area. If any patient is identified, they facilitate his transportaion to the nearest government health facility for proper testing and treatment.

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