Bhubaneswar: Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Friday said that India will meet the target of eliminating tuberculosis (TB) from the country by the end of this year, five years ahead of the global target.
Nadda said this while inaugurating the 9th National Summit on Good and Replicable Practices and Innovations in Public Healthcare System in Puri.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has organised the two-day-long conference.
“As per the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), India has to eliminate TB by 2030. But, we are all set to achieve it by 2025,” Nadda said.
“We have already identified 5 lakh TB patients during the ongoing 100-day ‘TB Mukt Bharat’ campaign in 455 districts across the country. An extensive campaign is going on.
We are going to include all aspirational districts and aspirational blocks under the campaign so that we will be able to eliminate tuberculosis by the end of 2025,” he said.
Nadda advised the participating health officers to treat the public representatives as very important messengers and important tools for translation of the policies and programmes of the government.
“I see somewhere that officers are a little lagging behind in this aspect. So, please treat the public representatives as spokesperson of your policies and programmes. Take the PRI on board for better implementation of ‘TB Mukt Bharat’ campaign along with the 22 lines departments,” the Union Health minister advised the officers.
He said that there is a tremendous increase in non-communicable diseases due to the negative impact on the environment.
“Prime Minister has appealed to the people to decrease oil consumption by at least 10 per cent in every household. We have to take it as a movement with a holistic approach,” he said. Emphasising the delivery of quality healthcare at primary healthcare centres (PHC), Nadda said, “Our base needs to be strengthened to provide quality and accessible healthcare to the 1.4 billion population of our country.”