JOIN USIn a bid to raise awareness about Tuberculosis (TB), more than 300 students from All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Department of Biotechnology took part in a three kilometre marathon.
Flagged off by Member of Parliament Meenakshi Lekhi and Professor Sarman Singh, head, Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Medicine Department, AIIMS and Varun Khanna of Becton Dickinson (BD) India, the marathon was organised for the second time as part of TB awareness initiative.
The rally witnessed faculty members and students wearing T-shirts with a call to scale up efforts to find, treat and cure missing cases of TB.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof Singh, said, “Early identification and treatment of TB is the key to preventing further spread of the disease. Our aim is to reach out to every TB patient and urge them to go to the nearby government health centres if they show symptoms of tuberculosis like cough and fever for more than two weeks.”
In addition, a day-long symposium was organised at the AIIMS auditorium, attended by the experts from AIIMS and Department of Biotechnology. Experts opined that India should generate its own data reading efficacy of various diagnostic tests. Special attention needs to be provided to high risk groups such as babies and young children, older adults, people who have other disease that weaken the immune system.
Varun Khanna, managing director, BD India said, “Left untreated, each person with active TB may infect on an average between 10 to 15 people every year. In 2013, the World Health Organisation identified three million missing (those whose treatment process had yet not begun) TB cases globally of which one million were in India. It is an effort to help address the diagnosis and treatment of our missing million. Efforts are on to address such unmet healthcare needs in India. We are strengthening the healthcare systems which is heavily burdened by TB”.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that usually infects the lungs, but can attack almost any part of the body. It is spread from person to person through the air. India constitutes one-fifth of the global TB burden. Every year in India, close to two million people develop the disease with nearly 40 per cent of them being infectious. As per World Health Organisation, India along with China, contributes nearly 50 per cent to the global burden of Multiple Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB).