Why in news?

President Droupadi Murmu virtually launched the Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.

Highlights:

• The President will also launch the Ni-kshay Mitra initiative which forms a vital component of the `Abhiyaan’.

Why this campaign?

• Tuberculosis caused the largest number of deaths among all other infectious diseases in the country. India had a little less than 20 per cent of the world’s population, but had more than 25 per cent of the total TB patients of the world.
• India has the world’s highest tuberculosis (TB) burden, with an estimated 26 lakh people contracting the disease and approximately 4 lakh people dying from it every year.
• The economic burden of TB in terms of the loss of lives, income and workdays is also substantial. TB usually affects the most economically productive age group of society resulting in a significant loss of working days thereby pushing the TB patients further into the vortex of poverty.
• According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, all nations have set the goal of eradicating TB by the year 2030. But the Government of India has set the target of eradicating TB by the year 2025 and efforts are being made at every level to fulfil this resolution.

About the campaign:

• The Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan has been envisioned to bring together all community stakeholders to support those on TB treatment and accelerate the country’s progress towards TB elimination.
• The launch event aims to highlight the need for a societal approach that brings together people from all backgrounds into a `Jan Andolan’ to achieve the ambitious target of eliminating TB from the country by 2025. `
• Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan’ is a step towards garnering community support towards a patient-centric health system.

About Ni-kshay Mitra portal

• The Ni-kshay Mitra portal provides a platform for donors to provide various forms of support to those undergoing TB treatment.
• The three-pronged support includes nutritional, additional diagnostic, and vocational support.
• The Health Ministry’s unique “adopt a TB-patient” (Ni-kshay Mitras) initiative — probably the only one-of-its-kind in the world
• Ni-kshay Mitra (Donor) for this programme includes co-operative societies, corporates, elected representatives, individuals, institutions, non-governmental organisations, political parties and partners who can support by adopting the health facilities (for individual donor), blocks/urban wards/districts/States for accelerating the response against TB to complement the government efforts, as per the district-specific requirements in coordination with the district administration.
• the State and the district administration would support Ni-kshay Mitras in prioritising the districts and in providing guidance on the critical gap analysis and district-specific needs.
• The support provided to the patient under this initiative is in addition to the free diagnostics, free drugs and Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana provided by the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) to all the TB patients notified from both the public and the private sector.
• Ni-kshay Mitra would provide additional support to all the on-treatment The TB patients who had given consent for support, in the selected health facilities /blocks/urban wards/districts/States.
• “Only individual Ni-kshay Mitra can choose the patients from a given health facility. The other Ni-kshay Mitras have to choose the entire geographical unit (blocks/urban wards/districts/States),’’.
• The minimum period of commitment for providing the additional support to the TB patient would be one year.

Benefits gained:

• This activity aims at increasing awareness among the public regarding tuberculosis and the involvement of the community in supporting the treatment cascade shall also help in the reduction of the stigma.
• The provision of additional support to the TB patient shall also result in the reduction of the out-of-pocket expenditure for the family of the TB patient.

• Ultimately improved nutrition for the TB patient shall result in better treatment outcomes,.