1. The disease Tuberculosis is caused by?

Rajasthan First State to Declare 29 Gram Panchayats TB free, CM Says

Utkarsh Classes Last Updated 06-02-2024

Rajasthan First State to Declare 29 Gram Panchayats TB free, CM Says

Rajasthan 5 min read

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot released 'Mhare Gaon TB Na Pasare Paav' tuberculosis awareness poster and booklet and said that Rajasthan is the first state to declare 29 gram panchayats TB-free.

Silver and bronze medals have been given at the national level to 4-4 districts doing excellent work in TB eradication. This indicates serious efforts towards eradication of Tuberculosis.

About Rajasthan’s steps towards eradicating TB

The life of a tuberculosis patient is very painful. 26 percent of the world's TB patients are in India and 6 percent of them are in Rajasthan.
The Chief Minister said that 'TB-free Gram Panchayat Campaign' is being conducted to make the gram panchayats TB-free and to identify and treat patients up to the panchayat level.
The state government is continuously working to make Rajasthan the number one state in all fields including health by 2030, to make the vision of Nirogi Rajasthan a reality. It is our commitment to provide health services to the last man by providing medical facilities in every village.
Our aim is to make Rajasthan decay free by 2025. Just as everyone in the state together faced the Covid-19 pandemic, similarly the state will be made TB-free by taking everyone along.
This year, to make the state's gram panchayats TB free, the second phase of 'TB Free Gram Panchayat Campaign' has been launched in 7000 gram panchayats of the state.
In addition, Gehlot felicitated Baran, Bhilwara, Jalore and Jaisalmer District Collectors who received Silver Medals and Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur District Collectors who received Bronze Medals for doing remarkable work towards TB eradication in the year 2022. Sarpanches of 29 TB-free gram panchayats were also honored by the Chief Minister on the occasion.

About TB and its causative agent

Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacteria usually attack the lungs, but TB bacteria can attack any part of the body such as the kidney, spine, and brain.
The three stages of TB are:
- Primary infection.
- Latent TB infection.
- Active TB disease.

India’s strategy towards eradicating TB

In March 2016, in his Mann Ki Baat address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to make India TB-free; in 2018 he set the target to “eliminate TB by 2025”. To fulfil this goal, the Health Ministry rolled out the National Strategic Plan (NSP) 2017-2025 to “eliminate” TB by 2025.
NI-KSHAY-(Ni=End, Kshay=TB) is the web enabled patient management system for TB control under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP).
It is developed and maintained by the Central TB Division (CTD), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), and the World Health Organization Country office for India.
Ni-kshay is used by health functionaries at various levels across the country both in the public and private sector, to register cases under their care, order various types of tests from Labs across the country, record treatment details, monitor treatment adherence and to transfer cases between care providers.
It also functions as the National TB Surveillance System and enables reporting of various surveillance data to the Government of India.