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the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Central TB Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have zeroed in on 75 tribal districts, where focused interventions will be run over the next few months with the aim to make them TB-free.

Highlights:

• The campaign to detect TB cases across 174 tribal districts started this January under the Aashwasan Campaign, under which door-to-door screening was done in over 68,000 villages. Official data showed that 3,82,811 people were identified for presumptive TB after a verbal screening of over 1.03 crore people in these villages.
• Of these, over 2.79 lakh people’s samples were tested for TB, among which, 9,971 people tested positive and were placed under treatment as per government protocol.
• tribal populations are more vulnerable to TB and other respiratory diseases compared to other population groups.

Strategy :

• three-pronged strategy to address the high incidence of TB in the selected 75 tribal districts, keeping with the Union government’s mission to make India TB-free by 2025, a government statement said.
• The districts selected are among those with a higher proportion of tribal populations, those that have not yet performed well in curbing TB, and those that reported relatively higher TB cases during the case-detection campaign.
• This includes generating demand for TB services by engaging with community influencers like tribal leaders, tribal healers, Panchayati Raj Institution members, Self-Help Groups and youth in the tribal areas, who are expected to help increase awareness on TB, its symptoms, spread and treatment processes and address the stigma and fear associated with the disease.
• These community influencers were identified during the 100-day Aashwasan Campaign and helped in case detection as well.
• In the selected 75 districts, the government also intends to improve the delivery of TB services by enhancing testing and diagnosis infrastructure and leveraging Programme Implementation Plans and other sources of funding to address implementation gaps and provide customised solutions.
• To guide the implementation of these planned interventions, the government is planning to deploy two officials each at the district level and three officials in each of the state TB cells.

The Aashwasan Campaign

• The Aashwasan Campaign was undertaken by the Tribal Affairs and Health Ministries and supported by USAID (United States Agency for International Development) as a technical partner and Piramal Swasthya as the implementing partner.
• Launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Anamaya, Tribal Health Collaborative (an initiative of Piramal Foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID), the Tribal TB Initiative aims to improve TB care and support among tribal populations in India.
• A forerunner in collaborative efforts by government and development agencies to tackle multi-dimensional issues specific to TB in tribal people, it fosters community engagement, forging partnerships with community-based organisations and community-influencers to influence behavior change to reduce the burden of TB.
• It also works with the public health system to enhance screening and diagnosis, increase notification and complement government efforts for timely treatment and adherence.
• Under the aegis of this initiative, the Aashwasan campaign was launched in January 2022, to reach 10 million tribal people in all the blocks across 177 tribal districts, over a 100-day period.

• The campaign’s objectives are to accelerate early detection of TB cases and increase awareness while at the same time addressing issues posed by the Covid pandemic.