Second quarterly review meeting of the revised national TB control programme was held on Aug 5 at directorate of health & family welfare, conference hall.
State TB officer, Dr. K. T. Lotha gave a brief picture about the plans to scale up DOTS plus services in Nagaland for treatment of MDR TB cases which is underway. For this purpose two DOTS plus sites would be set up at Khuzama and Mokokchung in two phases by December 2011 and April 2012 respectively.
In the 1st phase, Dimapur, Kohima, Peren, Phek, Kiphire and Wokha would refer MDR patients to Khuzama and in the next phase, the remaining five districts would refer patients to Mokokchung.
DOTS plus Sites are facilities where Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) TB patients would be admitted for a short period (7-15 days) where extensive investigation and initiation of treatment will be done. The patient will then be sent back to their respective districts where they will continue to undergo treatment.
Earlier at the meeting, Dr John Sweyievisa, joint director, DH & FW made the opening remark where he expressed concern about some of the staff who were not working as expected.
Dr. Shankar Dapkekar, North East Consultant of RNTCP gave a presentation on state performance during the Quarter. This Quarter, Nagaland achieved a decent Case Detection Rate (CDR) of 81% while the Cure Rate (CR) was 89%. He also put up certain challenges before the house which needed to be addressed. This included scaling up the CDR and CR to 90% from the present National target of 70% and 85% respectively. He also raised the issue of MDR TB which is a result of poor adherence to basic DOTS and irrational and irregular use of Anti TB drugs. Dr. Rose Chakhesang, HIV TB Consultant (NSACS) in closing remark encouraged the programme to enhance the linkage between RNTCP and NSACS.