Relevance : GS Paper II (Indian Economy)
[900 words reduced to 100]
- TB has become one of the leading cause of adult deaths although it is curable and preventable.
- Signs of change
- Use of microchips to track patients
- short course (DOTS) strategy, which requires reporting every day to a health authority
- use of tablets, phones and drones for surveillance of TB patients.
- Way forward
- availability of affordable generics of bedaquiline and delamanid.
- Deployment of trained community health-care workers in sufficient numbers
- Community-based structures to ensure accountability and foster partnership
- Participation of grassroots civil society
- We can only beat TB using a human rights approach which does not control people with TB, rather treat them as partners.
