In the latest active case finding initiative, the health department detected 98 new tuberculosis patients in the Bareillydistrict. Health officials aims to declare each village tuberculosis-free in the district.

According to health department, almost 11,033 TB patients were registered in the district till August this year. District tuberculosis officer Sudhir Garg said that every year, two persons in a village with a population of 1,000 to 1,200 have tested positive for TB after sputum test. However there could be more and to diagnose such patients, they are conducting these house-to-house initiatives. Also, from searching suspected TB patients and conducting sputum tests, the team members create awareness about it among people. If a village does not report any new TB case after one-and-a-half-year of active case finding drive, they declare it as tuberculosis-free village.

He further said that the effortis to trace hidden TB patients and educate locals about TB symptoms. They ask locals if they notice TB-like symptoms in any person in future, they should bring him or her at thecenter for sputum test or can contact any ASHA worker concerned. They have also been conducting such awareness campaigns in primary schools.

The fifth round of active case finding of TB was conducted from October 12thto 23rd. The health department constituted 196 teams and each team covered nearly 500 houses in 10 days. During the drive, teams targeted 4, 74,732 people, which is 10% of the district’s total population.

According to officials, the first round was conducted in June 2018 and 93 cases were detected while 104 cases were detected during the second round in August 2018. Two rounds of drive have already been undertaken this year and 107 and 134 new TB patients were detected, respectively. In 2018, the district had 11,692 TB patients, including 3,176 who were registered at private hospitals. In 2016, Bareilly had 8,141 TB patients which increased to 9,605 in 2017.

The door-to-door initiative is a part of a nationwide effort to cast out the disease as it claims more than 4.06 lakh lives in the country each year. To eliminate the disease by 2025, the central government has instructed all the states to start “active case finding” of the disease. The old method of identifying TB patients, where patients used to approach the health authorities should be replaced by health workers going door to door to identify such patients.