The Government aims to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025 according to the national strategic plan. However, non-cooperation by private doctors in notifying TB patients treated by them poses a major challenge. The Maharashtra state Public Health Department thus intends to start taking action against such private doctors who have failed to notify about TB patients treated by them.
Official estimates suggest that more than half of all TB patients treated in India seek care in the private sector, but case notifications from this sector lag far behind those in the government hospitals. TB has been a notifiable disease since 2012 and healthcare providers are required to notify all TB cases to the authorities in a prescribed format. In order to make things easier, the Government of India introduced a web-enabled application, NIKSHAY, in 2012 to facilitate the monitoring of universal access…
