Kishore Surekha
State Tuberculosis Officer, Government of Uttarakhand
Title: Status of Tuberculosis diagnosis and notification in Uttarakhand
Biography
Biography: Kishore Surekha
Abstract
Government of India has mandated all practitioners to notify cases of Tuberculosis either through a web based portal or mobile application termed as “Nikshay”. Nikshay literally means “Eradication of Tuberculosis”. It is already documented that healthcare practitioners do not comply with the mandatory notifications. Current study was planned with an objective to review Tuberculosis diagnosis and notification by medical colleges in Uttarakhand.
A retrospective observation record based study of Tuberculosis cases notified in Nikshay in calendar years 2016- 2018 (3 years) was conducted. Records were collected from medical colleges in Uttarakhand through quarterly reports. Aggregated data was analysed using SPSS 23.0 version.
Out of seven medical colleges located in Uttarakhand; all had functional DMC and one medical college had functional CBNAAT and 1 DR-TB centre. There was increase in number of cased diagnosed by medical colleges 1073, 2377 and 5047 in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. Tuberculosis cases diagnosed by medical colleges were 22.57% among all diagnosed cases in Uttarakhand in 2018. Also number of cases diagnosed by medical colleges as microbiologically confirmed pulmonary TB, clinically diagnosed pulmonary TB and extra-pulmonary TB increased over three years. Among the cases diagnosed by medical colleges 75.96% were notified to Nikshay portal.
Gradual increase in cased diagnosed as well as notified by medical colleges over three years. However, notification remains a grave concern since among the total diagnosed cases only two third were notified. Efforts should be made to ensure notification of all diagnosed cases to Nikshay leading effective case management and tracking the TB patient.