Nagaland Aims for "TB-Free" Status by 2025, Accelerating Efforts to Achieve Ambitious Central Government Target
DIMAPUR: The Nagaland State National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) is working hard to reach its goal of "TB-Free Nagaland" by 2025. This is part of the Central Government's bigger plan to eliminate Tuberculosis (TB) five years before the 2030 target set by the Global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
Dr. Vezokholu Theyo, the state TB officer of NTEP, knows meeting this goal is ambitious. However, they are making several policy changes and starting new initiatives to speed up these efforts. The base year for this goal was 2015. They want to reduce the number of TB cases by 80%.
Dr. Theyo says that, in 2023, Nagaland had 4,284 active TB cases. This is about 204 cases for every lakh of people. The city of Dimapur had the most cases, nearly half of the total. But the district of Longleng had the fewest. Private hospitals reported about 15% of the TB cases that year.
Most people who got TB in 2023 were men aged 15 to 45 years. They made up 60% of the cases. Also, out of the 4,361 total cases, 412 people had both TB and HIV. This is 9.4% of all cases reported.
Dr. Theyo stressed the need to find all possible TB cases, even ones that may be missed, and test them using the latest technology. In 2020, the number of TB cases reported dropped, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures were taken to solve this problem, but some issues remained, affecting how samples were moved and how much the public helped.
Post-COVID, there was a spike in TB cases. This was because of factors such as improved detection, increased attempts, better case discovering methods, new diagnosis tools, and collaborations with private businesses.
Dr. Theyo assured continuing actions. He highlighted key plans like local area certifications, districts free from TB, support from the community, and the usage of new tech like AI to detect TB through coughs. The state is focused on the National Strategic Plan (NSP). Their goal is to get rid of TB by 2025.
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