A Correspondent
Tezpur: A meeting of the District Tuberculosis Forum was held at the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner’s office on Wednesday in the presence of various stakeholders to discuss various strategies and policies in line with the Prime Minister of India’s vision to eradicate tuberculosis from the country by 2025.
The meeting, which was chaired by Deputy Commissioner Narsing Pawar, discussed various issues related to reducing stigma and discrimination associated with the disease, facilitating nutritional support for patients, establishing linkage with social welfare schemes, rehabilitation and social security of patients, and on creating awareness about various government schemes and programmes and treatment facilities available.
Speaking on the occasion, State IEC/ ACSM officer Dr Paranjoy Bordoloi informed all present about the need to intensify IEC activities for increasing awareness among the people, including sensitization of all stakeholders, on various aspects of TB diagnosis and treatment, follow up support through community-level awareness meetings. He also stressed the need to identify high priority areas and target schoolchildren for spreading awareness and fix time-frames and targets for all such activities. Dr. Palash Talukdar, WHO consultant, spoke on the importance of empowering the patients about their rights in order to do away with the social stigma associated with the disease and include lawyers, advocates, policymakers in the process. Deputy Commissioner Narsing Pawar asked the health department officials to lay special focus, identifying vulnerable pockets such as tea garden areas, and to carry out intensive sensitization campaigns in these areas and use TB champions to spread the positive message. District TB Officer Dr Sanjoy Roy gave the welcome speech and sought active cooperation from all stakeholders in the effort to fight tuberculosis.
Additional Deputy Commissioner KK Sarma, Assistant Commissioner Arpit Upadhyay, SDM&HO Rumi Pator, were also present in the meeting. Three TB Champions who were also present in the meeting shared their success stories of complete cure from tuberculosis and thanked the health department and doctors for their guidance and support in helping them overcome the disease.
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