BMC's campaign finds 77 new TB cases in Mumbai

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)'s public health department which conducted a house-to-house active case finding (ACF) campaign for tuberculosis (TB) control thrice in 2018, has found only 77 new cases tested positive in the city.

The group of BMC's health worker visited households across 24 wards identified by them to look for people with symptoms of TB. While all the 77 cases are scattered in different wards, as per the Right To Information (RTI) response, around 10 suspected cases tested positive were found in F/S ward - followed by nine cases in G/N ward, eight cases in F/N ward and seven cases in P/S ward. Other wards found cases between zero to five.

In the three rounds of ACF last year, around 5,491 number of new cases were suspected with TB during the survey of which only 77 cases tested positive and were given further treatment.

Dr Daksha Shah, head of BMC's TB control cell, said, "Detection in the house-to-house is done in order to increase the awareness level of TB among the citizens. The awareness level created and information given to the citizens helps the citizens to approach the health facilities faster when they see any symptoms related to TB."

According to the TB control department, such campaign helps in early detection of cases but are only done in specifically identified areas rather than including every household.

Overall it helps in one to two per cent of early suspected cases detection. It is only three rounds over the year rather than a daily activity. Dr Shah, added, "Wards which have major TB cases are routinely checked for early detection. The awareness campaign is done throughout the year and awareness level in wards with increased in a number of TB cases is high and so most of them are already getting treated. If we find that in certain areas the citizens are not approaching the health facilities or the case detection has decreased, than in those areas we target the active case finding campaign."