TB research centre to be set up in Mumbai's JJ hospital: Minister

Maharashtra Public Health Minister Deepak Sawant today told the state Assembly that a tuberculosis (TB) research centre would be set up at the state-run JJ hospital in Mumbai. He was responding to a calling attention motion raised by the BJP's Vile Parle MLA Parag Alavani. Alavani had sought a response from the state's public health ministry on measures it was taking to tackle tuberculosis. The MLA claimed that two lakh fresh cases of TB as well as 1,000 deaths were reported in 2017.

He pointed out that TB was an airborne disease and a huge number of Mumbaikars used the heavily-crowded suburban train network for their daily commute. Sawant said, "We will set up a TB research centre at J J Hospital in Mumbai. The Centre has also given Maharashtra 117 cartridge-based Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing (CB-NAAT) machines, which detect suspected cases, and this number includes 28 for Mumbai." NCP leader and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar raised an objection, stating that Maharashtra was spending just half of the funds allocated to fight TB. "As per my information, Rs 2,000 crore is allocated to fight TB but the state manages to spend just 50 per cent of it. This is unacceptable. People are dying due to the disease but the state fails to spend the total allocation," he said.

Congress MLA from Dharavi, Varsha Gaikwad, pointing to PM Narendra Modi's announcement of eradicating TB from the country by 2025, wanted to know whether Sawant's ministry was planning to launch a pilot project in any locality in the state to eradicate TB. In reply, Sawant said, "As it is an airborne disease, people from your constituency (Dharavi, which has sizable slum pockets) are more likely to suffer from the infection. Mumbai has a significant floating population which makes more people vulnerable to TB. As of now, there is no proposal to launch any pilot project," Sawant said.

Rahul Aher, BJP MLA from Chandwad in Nashik, pointed out that drugs currently being administered to TB patients were not potent enough and the bacteria was becoming increasingly drug-resistant. Earlier, Sawant in his written reply, stated that, as of 2017, there were a total of 1,23,963 TB patients in Maharashtra out of which 21,706 were from Mumbai. He added that 5,699 people died due to TB across the state, including 963 in Mumbai, in 2017. He said the figures for 2016 were 1,22,602 TB patients in the state and 22,462 in Mumbai. In 2016, 6,884 TB occurred across the state, including 1,240 in Mumbai. "Of the total TB cases detected across state, 18-20 per cent are found in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation area alone," Sawant said. The minister also said there are three laboratories in Mumbai for TB detection tests. "We will set up two more so that there will be five TB detector laboratories, which will eventually benefit the patients," he signed off.

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