The Union Health Ministry has announced “adopt a TB-patient” (Ni-kshay Mitra) initiative on September 10.
Key highlights of (Ni-kshay Mitra)
- The programme aims to fill the critical “community” element into India’s fight towards eliminating TB by 2025 under the Pradhan Mantri TB-Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.
- For the effective engagement of the community for eradicating TB in India, the Ministry was implementing community support for TB patients — the Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.
- The donors include cooperative societies, corporates, elected representatives, individuals, institutions, non-governmental organisations, political parties and partners willing to adopt the health facilities (for individual donor) and urban wards, blocks, districts and States for accelerating the response against TB to complement the government’s efforts.
- The State and the district administration would support the donors 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 the Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana provided by the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) to all the patients notified from both the public and the private sector.
- Donors would provide additional support to all the on-treatment TB patients who had given consent for support, in the selected health facilities, blocks, urban wards, districts and States.
- The minimum period of commitment for providing the support to the TB patient will be one year.
(Source: The Hindu)
