By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi: Tuberculosis (TB) is taking a great toll on the lives of the poor in India and the Catholic Church is doing its best to prevent it, said Sister Nirmala Mulackal, SCN, executive director of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India-Coalition for AIDS and Related Diseases (CBCI-CARD).
TB is a 100% preventable and curable disease and yet the statistics reveal that millions of people continue to be affected and many die of it even today with all the progress and advancement in medical science. This debilitating and incapacitating illness in India is often perpetuated by poverty, ignorance, myth, social taboos coupled with exploitation of certain private practitioners who treat the case without revealing the real cause and many drug-resistant cases are borne, said Sister Mulackal.
United together to make difference in the present status of TB in India, CBCI CARD along with Central TB Division Government of India, Global Fund and many NGOs are committed to building a TB Free India.
“We are happy that through its large network of health facilities, more than 80% of which are in the rural areas the Catholic Health network provide effective, accessible, affordable and low-cost healthcare to poor patients in remote areas. CBCI-CARD plays a key role in coordinating activities, advocacy at different levels, resource mobilization, capacity building, documentation and sharing of best practices among partner organizations. By leveraging the strengths of various partners, CBCI-CARD helps in managing resources and achieving higher standards in a more efficient manner,” she said.
With its committed and dedicated staff at the grass root level guided and directed by the Central Office, CBCI CARD is committed to making a difference in the lives of millions of people in India who are suffering from TB.
“May Jesus, the source of all goodness enable us to serve the poor and needy with a great sense of passion, commitment and love to create a just world filled with peace, harmony and wellness,” the nun said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in four TB patients in the world is from India. But the people suffering the bacterial disease in the country could be much more than the 280000 estimated by the global health body. The Indian Federal Health department reckons that more than a million TB cases are not reported every year. These “missing cases” are a big epidemiological challenge. The patients remain undiagnosed or are inadequately diagnosed, financial pressure forces many of them to give up on medicines midway through the therapy and laxity in medical supervision in the private sector compounds the problem, making patients vulnerable to the more virulent drug-resistant TB.
The government has set a target getting rid of TB by 2025, five years ahead of the global schedule.
In 2016, a study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal pointed out that the absence of proper protocols in private hospitals and clinics very often means that patients stop treatment as soon as they feel better. Another 2016 study, published in the Transactions of Royal Society of Medicine, pointed out that private practitioners often focus on treating symptoms and do not ask for lab investigations.
Bodies like the WHO and studies like the one in Lancet and the Transactions of Royal Society of Medicine estimate that the private sector treats 40 to 50 per cent of TB patients.
CBCI-CARD was established in 2009 to serve people by improving their health status. It currently focuses on TB control by working through the network of Catholic Health facilities and social service organization across 19 states of India.
It conducts workshops at national, state, diocese/district levels motivating, educating and sensitizing healthcare professionals to carry out TB control activities with enhanced professionalism. It holds review meetings to discuss achievements, identify challenges and take appropriate action. It supervises the TB related activities in the Catholic Health institutions in collaboration with state and district level officials. It spearheads advocacy activities in 29 districts across four states.