Mumbai: To implement the Centre’s plan to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025-end, the BMC will this week onwards start checking close contacts of newly diagnosed patients for latent TB using a new, next generation skin test.
The test, called Cy TB test, was introduced in India’s National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) a few months back; a solution is injected on the forearm that after 48 hours shows if a patient has latent TB, a condition in which TB bacteria are present in the body but are not causing disease so far. The idea is to start latent TB patients on medication and eliminate the chances of any future infection.
On Monday, The BMC will also start a BCG vaccination programme in which 30,000 to 40,000 Mumbaikars living in 12 of the high-risk TB wards of the city will be given the vaccine. In a three-year follow, it will be assessed whether BCG — usually given to 15-day-old infants to protect against TB — can boost protection against the disease for adults as well.
BMC executive health officer Dr Daksha Shah confirmed that the CyTB testing and BCG roll-out will start this week. “For both these initiatives, our healthcare workers will ask people to come to the nearest civic centre,” she said.
In case of the BCG vaccination, the BMC community workers had prepared a line list of vulnerable people — former patients, patients with diabetes, smokers, immunocompromised patients and senior citizens — in the 12 wards and they will be asked to come to the civic TB officers. In case of Cy-TB test, relatives and close contacts of newly diagnosed patients will be asked to undergo the test for latent TB; the person will have to report back to the centre after 48 hours so that the civic team can assess whether or not he or she has latent TB before starting preventive treatment.
“Both are voluntary tests, we can’t force people to undergo them but it would help them as well as the overall elimination of TB,” said a civic doctor. In 2023, Mumbai recorded 63,644 new TB cases; roughly 10% of the cases are drug-resistant forms of the disease that are difficult to treat.
