The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) conducted a 10-day Tuberculosis screening drive in Bangalore’ slums.
The Karnataka Slum Development Board has prepared a micro-plan for a tuberculosis screening drive and suggested a few areas to BBMP in Bangalore city.
Bangalore’s Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun has inaugurated the screening drive on Jan. 02 to continue until Jan. 12.
The BBMP is giving Rs.500 as an incentive to the infected individuals to buy nutritious food until they get cured, along with free medication
“Among 48 to 50 detected cases, two are infants. The drive has been conducted only in the slum areas of Bangalore. In slums people do not maintain hygiene and TB is an easily transmittable disease,” said Dr. Anuradha the person-in-charge of the screening drive.
“During the drive, we have found that three people from the same family have been infected with TB. We inspected their home. It is a family of six and all of them stay together and sleep in one room. There is no ventilation in their bedroom. Three of them infected due to transmission from the first infected person. As it is easily transmittable, the remaining two were easily affected,” she added.
The screening drive team explained to the victims about the disease regarding the mode of transmission, medication, and precautions to be taken.
“We are doing our best to decrease the number of TB cases for next year’s drive,” said Dr. Anuradha.
TB should be eradicated by 2025: Active Case Finding
Many cases have not been reported in their data, as they were detected in private hospitals. For the past three years, private doctors are sending the data to TB nodal office for data entry so it can be recorded in the ACF Campaign of Karnataka State, which works to detect the cases and aims to eradicate them by 2025.
- Sravan, a fellow in Doctor of Pharmacy explained the adverse effects of TB: pain in the spine, joints, meningitis, visual defects, liver malfunction, etc.
It is not that only people living in slums can get easily affected by TB, but people with low immunity. One should follow hygiene rules in order to stay away from TB. Health care facilities are being enhanced in every TB unit in order to provide the best facilities to the public.
People who have symptoms like a chronic cough, weight loss, inadequate or suffocated breath, night sweats, should consult a doctor for preventing further infection. People should avoid smoking, consuming alcohol, infected patients, and nearby people must use face masks to avoid transmission by air.
