Puducherry becomes first one to include screening for TB patients under initiative of Family Adoption Programme

Puducherry has become the first state to include screening for tuberculosis (TB) patients under the initiative of “Family Adoption Program” where medical students adopt families as part of their community outreach.

When medical students adopt a family, they also screen all members of the family for TB.

If any member of the adopted family is found to have symptoms of TB, the students assist with both diagnosis and treatment, said Kavita Vasudevan, Head of Community Medicine, Indira Gandhi Medical College, Puducherry, speaking to The Hindu.

The National Medical Commission had previously made it mandatory for medical students to adopt 3 to 5 families and follow up with them for three years.

Dr. Vasudevan added that to identify the reasons for TB-related deaths, Puducherry has now adopted an initiative of Verbal Autopsy.

“Using this method, doctors at IGMC, Puducherry, are investigating the causes behind deaths due to tuberculosis and identify both patient-related and health system related factors,” she added.

She further explained that verbal autopsies are being conducted for 160 cases. 

“The findings reveal that the patients present late to the health facilities, and the highest number of deaths occurs after 14 days of diagnosis emphasising the need for multipronged strategies to ensure early health care seeking behaviours,” she added.

Puducherry’s nine medical colleges are now working as pillars in the UT’s TB elimination fight, contributing to 45% of TB notifications and actively participating in Active Case Finding (ACF) drives.

Senior UT health official added that the medical colleges are supporting in terms of diagnostic facilities, have ear marked beds for TB patients, conduct IEC activities, and provide support at the community level. 

These institutions are working with the State TB Cell to identify vulnerable populations and map them as moderate or high risk. The mapped individuals are tested using highly sensitive tests – AI-enabled Handheld chest X-rays and NAAT – molecular diagnostics. People with co-morbidities and other vulnerabilities that predispose them to the disease, are identified in the database and are followed up with in the future case finding drives as well, added officials.

The National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) is being implemented in Puducherry UT from 20th February 2004 under Department of Health & Family Welfare Services and National Health Mission. Puducherry UT has only one NTEP district covering a population of 13.92 lakhs. It has 7 TB units, 28 TB Diagnostic Centres, and an Intermediate Reference Laboratory (IRL) at the Government Hospital for Chest Diseases with culture and drug susceptibility testing facility for diagnosing TB.