Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla virtually joined the 'One World TB Summit 2023' organized in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh from Gorakhpur. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the conference and launched various initiatives to eradicate Tuberculosis from every Panchayat of country.
The Governor said that the Union and the State Governments were doing their best for TB control in the last two decades through the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) being run under the National Health Mission.
He said that TB Elimination Program were successfully being implemented in the state through one TB Sanatorium, 12 District Tuberculosis Centers, 78 Tuberculosis Units, 239 Microscopic Centers, one Intermediate Reference Laboratory (IRL) and two Culture and Drug Susceptibility Test (C&DST) labs in the State.
He said that Himachal Pradesh has fixed a target to eliminate tuberculosis from the State by the year 2023, ahead of the national target of 2025. He called upon the people to become 'Ni-Kshayamitra' by joining the campaign of 'TB Mukt Bharat' so that more and more patients could be adopted.
Shukla said that the testing rate of TB in the State is the highest in India, therefore the state is achieving the highest TB notification rate as it has also been appreciated in the recent NITI Aayog report, he added.
He said that the Department of Ayurveda has formally participated in the TB Free Himachal campaign. The Governor said that the State has also developed TB Mukt Himachal App, which is available free of cost on Google Play Store.
This app is a one point platform, where the user gets information about the symptoms of tuberculosis. He said that airborne infection control help desks had been set up in every hospital in the State to help in preventing transmission of the disease within the institutions.