{"id":73550,"date":"2020-12-18T18:03:16","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T12:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=73550"},"modified":"2020-12-19T18:03:28","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T12:33:28","slug":"eliminating-tuberculosis-tb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/eliminating-tuberculosis-tb\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliminating Tuberculosis (TB)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context-\u00a0<\/strong>The pandemic provides learning opportunity and opens up possibilities of accelerating Tuberculosis\u00a0(TB) elimination venture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More in news-<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Covid-19 has derailed the painstaking efforts of decades and diverted scientific attention from killer diseases like tuberculosis<\/li>\n<li>COVID-19 lockdowns have resulted in a 30 per cent decline in tuberculosis diagnosis and reporting.<\/li>\n<li>Researchers estimate that over the next five years, an additional 1.19 million TB cases and 3,61,000 TB deaths may occur in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is Tuberculosis?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tuberculosis\u00a0(TB) is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium\u00a0tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>TB\u00a0causes respiratory illness and spread from person to person through the air.<\/li>\n<li>Mortality rate of 13 per cent \u2014 far worse than the 1.3 per cent for COVID-19.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How combating COVID-19 pandemic can help eradicate TB<\/strong><strong>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Raise the awareness of the general masses-\u00a0<\/strong>The leaders and individuals have realized the devastation an infectious respiratory disease can cause.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Behavioural changes<\/strong>\u2013 The changes acquired during the pandemic such as cough hygiene, use of masks, physical distancing will further help reduce the transmission of tuberculosis, which is a respiratory illness.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Doctors and nurses will be less complacent about these measures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li><strong>Raise investments in the healthcare sector<\/strong>\u2013 investments in health systems infrastructure, infection control equipment and personal protection equipment will ensure better airborne infection prevention and control.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Boost testing scale-<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>COVID-19 has changed the landscape of testing and surveillance.<\/li>\n<li>The speed of research on new COVID-19 tests and the scale at which testing was applied are lessons to be learned by TB programmes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bi-directional\u201d TB and COVID-19 testing<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Greater identification of cases will lead to more persons being isolated and treated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li><strong>Speed of vaccine development-<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>The success of various COVID-19 vaccine platforms and the speed at which the vaccine has been brought to the market gives tremendous hope for TB vaccine candidates.<\/li>\n<li>Fast-tracking of research, advance purchasing, and research sharing by countries witnessed during the pandemic could apply to the TB vaccine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li>Several dedicated infectious diseases hospitals have come up as a part of the pandemic response measures, which would contribute in a major way towards tuberculosis care and management.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The molecular diagnostic capacity has increased<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 These multi-platform devices based on cartridge and chip-based technology can decentralize TB diagnosis.<\/li>\n<li>COVID-19 has taught to prioritize public health as much as curative and preventive health.<\/li>\n<li>The increased uptake of telemedicine and teleconsultation during the pandemic will provide channels of consultation for tuberculosis<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>COVID-19 is likely to expedite the trajectory of TB elimination.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>COVID-19\u00a0pandemic has provided an opportunity to boost TB elimination activities through health system strengthening and infectious diseases control.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context-\u00a0The pandemic provides learning opportunity and opens up possibilities of accelerating Tuberculosis\u00a0(TB) elimination venture. More in news- Covid-19 has derailed the painstaking efforts of decades and diverted scientific attention from killer diseases like tuberculosis COVID-19 lockdowns have resulted in a 30 per cent decline in tuberculosis diagnosis and reporting. Researchers estimate that over the next&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/eliminating-tuberculosis-tb\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Eliminating Tuberculosis (TB)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":73551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,1351,1310,9],"tags":[1289],"class_list":["post-73550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-public","tag-soc_0","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Eliminating-Tuberculosis-TB.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700811904,"cached_date":1704837252},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}