STS

Community Health Volunteers(CHVs) have to refer the presumptive cases identified based on the r symptom screening to the nearest NTEP health facility for further investigation. Once Diagnosed with TB, the TB patients are initiated on the first-line TB treatment. Patients are also offered NAAT within a maximum of 15 days to rule out any drug resistance. If no drug resistance is detected, then the patient continues on the first-line TB treatment. TB patients are then clinically evaluated every month to check the progress of TB treatment. 

Prerequisites to register as a Treatment Supporter

• "Nikshay" Application from Google Play store
• Stable internet connectivity for seamless experience
• A working mobile number, when interacting with NTEP health facility staff for login creation in Nikshay
• Bank details of treatment supporter, in order to be shared with NTEP Health Facility Staff.

1. Counsel and reassure the patient as the common occurring adverse effects usually resolve with time.
2. Advise the patient to take all the drugs together.
3. Advise patient to take light meal (biscuits, bread, rice etc.) before taking drugs.
4. Inform patients that they may take drugs embedded in banana or at the bedtime to reduce their associated side effects.
5. Encourage patients to keep themselves hydrated by increasing fluid intake.

Adverse Drug Reactions(ADR) are classified into serious and non-serious ADR depending upon the intensity of symptoms experienced by the patient. Below is the brief overview

When a TB patient consumes all the doses under the prescribed regimen, then Treatment Outcome is declared for a Patient.

To know the TB treatment response and to determine that if patient is cured, TB patients are clinically evaluated at the end of every four weeks of treatment, and they are also followed up by performing sputum test at end of each treatment phase (i.e. Intensive phase and Continuation phase)

TB patients during clinical evaluations are assessed to

• New case - A TB patient who has never had treatment for TB or has taken anti-TB drugs for less than one month is considered as a new case. 
• Previously treated patients have received 1 month or more of anti-TB drugs in the past. They could be further classified as:
• Recurrent TB case - A TB patient previously declared as successfully treated(cured/treatment completed) and is subsequently found to be microbiologically confirmed TB case is a recurrent TB case. 

Daily Regimen is prescribed for TB patients, where patients need to consume the medicine daily.

Daily Regimen comprises of the first line Anti TB drugs, based on

• Age: Adult/Paediatric
• Weight of the patient: Weight Bands

Age: Based on the age, patients are categorized into

• Adults: Patient's age should be 19 years or more.
• Paediatrics: Patient's age up to 18 years and weight less than 39 Kgs

A regimen means a prescribed systematic form of treatment for a course of drug(s). For TB treatment, Multi drug combination of regimen is followed. 

All TB drug regimens have an initial intensive phase(IP) followed by a continuation phase(CP). 

Following are some of the main TB drug regimens used based on the drug resistance pattern detected for TB patients.