New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry is strengthening its online tuberculosis monitoring system by sending SMS alerts to the patients if they miss a dose of their medication. All the tuberculosis patients in the country will be registered online in the next four months.
Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), chief Dr Ashok Kumar hoped that the records of all the patients will be procured by June. The record of 7, 98, 204 patients have been obtained till date, added Kumar.
Once the process completes, the patients will be contacted through phone calls and SMSes, informed Kumar. The details of about 3, 000-4, 000 patients are being collected every day. The RNTCP chief can get the information anytime though his cell phone.
| SMS alert for TB patients |
| India tops list of TB patients |
| 22 Lakhs new cases annually |
| 2 patients die of TB every 2 minutes |
| Record of 8 lakh patients registered till date |
The National Information Centre is providing technical support to the Health Ministry for NIKSHAY scheme (Online tool for monitoring TB control programme).
Under the new system, if a patient is out of station, he/she will have easy access to undergo treatment on the basis of 13-digit unique number.
Akshya convenor Subram Mohanty informed that about 7-8 percent Indian patients stop taking DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, short-course) in the meantime. This can be checked through this new system added Mohanty.
Mukesh Kejariwal/JPN
Latest News from India News Desk
