At 606/L, Chandigarh TB notification rate country’s highest

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 24

For every one lakh persons in the city, 606 were notified for tuberculosis (TB) in 2019, the highest notification rate in the country.

According to the annual “India TB-2020 Report” released by the Centre today, the city has been providing diagnostic care for population beyond its boundaries.

Dr Ashok Bhardwaj, member, Zonal Task Force on National TB Elimination Programme (Northern Region), said, “Chandigarh is the feeder for Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Any institute that diagnoses a patient has to notify the case. Thus, Chandigarh has the highest notification rate.”

Also read: India missed 2.9L TB cases in 2019, down from 10L previously

After taking into account patient movement post-diagnosis, the TB notification rate of Chandigarh is 306 per lakh, which is the second highest in the country. At 520 per lakh, Delhi has the highest notification rate.

The total number of notified TB cases in the city is 7,026, of which around 56 per cent (3,975) are males and around 43 per cent (3,036) females. At least 7 per cent (527) of the notified cases are paediatric.

Of the notified cases, 3,557 were enrolled in health care facilities. These were calculated after taking into consideration patients who have moved out and those who have come in from other states. As many as 3,828 patients moved to other states while 359 came in from other states.

8 per cent infected with HIV too

Approximately 8 per cent of patients had HIV and TB.

Dr Sonu Goel of the School of Community Medicine, PGI, said, “TB patients are more vulnerable to HIV as they are immune-compromised. These are ‘cross-programmes’ of both HIV and TB as there is always a chance of a TB patient getting infected with HIV and vice versa. A TB patient should be tested for HIV and diabetes.”

Cure rate improves

At health facilities in the public sector, the cure rate has increased to 67 per cent from 54 per cent a year before. The death rate has slipped from 3.4 per cent to 3 per cent in the public sector, whereas for the private sector the death rate inflated to 6 per cent from 1 per cent a year before.

Chandigarh has reported 30,157 presumptive TB cases, which refers to a patient who shows symptoms or signs suggestive of TB.