Base Technical Content in text and simple images.
Health Volunteers are often the regular point of contact for a TB patient in the community. They support the TB patient during the entire episode of TB and ensure complete diagnosis and treatment.
The World Health Organisation End TB Strategy, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2014, aims to end the global TB epidemic. The strategy draws on the opportunities presented by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially those goals aimed at achieving universal health coverage and social protection from disease.
The table given below provides information on the vision, goal, milestones and targets for the End TB Strategy.
The Senior Treatment Supervisor (STS) interacts with the patient care ecosystem from the time a TB case is notified, diagnosed and anti-TB treatment is initiated.
The key interactions include:
The Epidemiologic Triad is a model used in the field of epidemiology to study diseases and how they are spread. It consists of a triangle with three vertices or corners.
The three vertices for infectious diseases consist of:
1. Agent, or microbe that is the factor causing the disease.
2. Host, or organism harbouring the disease.
3. Environment, or those external factors that cause or allow disease transmission.
Chemotherapy for TB is the use of an anti-TB drugs to kill, or prevent the replication of, TB mycobacteria in the patient’s body. Effective anti-TB chemotherapy renders the patient non-contagious and cures the patient, thereby interrupting the chain of transmission. Mortality rates of TB range from 50-80% in untreated smear-positive individuals and drop to lower than 5% under chemotherapy.
The primary impact of HIV on TB is that the risk of developing TB becomes higher in patients with HIV. Overall, HIV-infected persons have an approximately 8-times greater risk of TB than persons without HIV infection.
Screen TB PLHIV patients for symptoms of TB and HIV
Figure: Screening steps for TB - HIV patients
Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) is a major initiative of Government of India (GoI) whereby any government subsidy or benefit is to be transferred directly into the beneficiary's bank accounts. Intermediary government agencies only manage the process of payments, without handling actutal money.
Fixed-Dose Combination(FDC) provides a simple approach to deliver the correct number of drugs at the right dosage as all the necessary drugs are combined in a single tablet. By altering the number of pills according to the patient’s body weight, complete treatment is delivered without the need for calculation of dose
Figure: Advantages of Fixed Dose Combination(FDC)
Fixed-dose combinations (FDCs) are drug formulations where two or more drugs are combined physically into one formulation such as a tablet or pill.
This is more convenient to the patients taking medicines and it also simplifies the supply chain.
Resources:
Standard TB Treatment is divided into two phases
