As many as 70,000 search teams will participate in a joint campaign beginning Tuesday in Maharashtra’s Pune city to find cases of leprosy and tuberculosis that have remained undetected so far.
Maharashtra TB officer Dr R S Adkekar told The Indian Express that a population of 8.6 crore will be covered and house to house visits will be scheduled from September 13 to 30.
Around 4,117 teams will be deputed in Pune for the exercise and a survey will be conducted for a population of 56 lakh.
The campaign is part of the government’s long term plan to eliminate TB by 2025.
For Leprosy too, active case detection and regular surveillance activities are being taken up to interrupt the transmission of the causative organism mycobacterium leprae.
Active case detection activities will help towards early identification of suspected cases in the community which can then be promptly diagnosed and treated.
A total of 1.57 lakh TB cases were detected across Maharashtra from January 1 till September 11, while around 7,000 cases of leprosy were identified from April 1 till August 31 this year.
“We have held several meetings and instructed districts to carry out their own action plan,” Dr Adkekar said.
“Each search team will have two volunteers — male and female — and at least 25 houses will be visited by them daily in the urban areas while 20 houses in rural areas.
Dr Adkekar said the teams have been instructed to keep a watch for symptoms like cough and cold for more than two weeks, fever and significant weight loss and blood in the sputum to identify a presumptive case of TB.
He added that these would be suspected cases and sputum samples would be collected and examined under a microscope.
For detection of leprosy, the team will examine persons in each household for pale or red patches and patches signifying loss of sensation.
These suspected cases will be referred to primary health centres and rural hospitals for initiating multi drug therapy.
High risk population will also be identified in the urban areas, especially in slum areas, those with Grade 2 disability, brick kiln workers, construction site workers and migratory population.
The health teams across Pune district will embark on a week long drive from September 13 to 20 to search for leprosy and tuberculosis patients.
“This active case finding is part of the campaign to search for such patients with TB and leprosy who have gone undetected so far,” said the district health authorities.
A review meeting was held on Monday by Pune district collectorate officials.
According to the report, there were 621 leprosy patients registered till August this year and who were availing of treatment.
Around 209 new leprosy cases were detected from April till August this year.
