Now, India Post to transport sputum from doorstep to laboratories

NEW DELHI: In a move that may help in reducing the cases of tuberculosis in the country, the Ministry of Health has roped in Postal Department for the transportation of sputum from the doorstep of the patients to the government approved testing laboratories. A pilot project in this regard has been started in Delhi by the Union Health Ministry.

Explaining about the project, Sanjeeva Kumar, the additional secretary in the Health Ministry, told Millennium Post that the project has been initiated to reach out to a maximum number of TB patients.

“Patients have to travel from their home to testing labs for getting their sputum samples tested and for that they have to spend time and money. To address that concern, we have roped in the postal department to transport the sputum from patients’ doorstep to reference laboratory without any cost,” said Kumar, adding that prompt transport of specimen followed by efficacious testing would enable appropriate management of the TB patients and reduce disease transmission.

“When TB patients travel in any mode of transport, they also infect others, which add to the number of new TB cases. So the pilot project would also help in protecting people from getting infected to TB,” the official said.

“The identification of TB patients would be done by health volunteers active in particular areas and the sputum collection boxes would be provided to patients by health workers,” he said, adding that sputum would be transported to post-offices by health workers and then it would the responsibility of concerned post-offices to deliver the sputum to testing

labs within 72 hours.

“We have started the project from Delhi’s Karawal Nagar areas and after its success, it would be launched across the country. Even at the initial stage, any state expresses its willingness for the project, we are ready to launch,” the official said, adding that concerned state would bear the cost of postage.

According to the latest World Health Organisation report on TB, there are 19.08

lakh cases of tuberculosis in the country and out of it 17.86 are new cases.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target to eliminate TB from the country by 2025, which five years earlier that WHO target of 2030.