Lata a daily wage worker is also the sole breadwinner of her family. She used to work as a part-time help in the shanty clusters of Mohalla Sher Mohammad in the Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Life was challenging and with her meagre earnings, she somehow managed to make ends meet. She was diagnosed with TB in 2019. However, the silver lining was the support she received from the government. The staff from the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) in Uttar Pradesh traced her house and started counselling her on starting anti-TB treatment. She was surprised to find out that both diagnosis and treatment services including the cost of medicines were free and would be borne by the government. She completed the first course of anti-TB treatment and showed satisfactory progress. However, soon after the lockdown was announced by the government in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was extremely worried as her struggle for livelihood and anti-TB drugs started, for which she used to go to the nearby treatment centre every alternate day. Lata’s* plight is similar to that of many other TB patients post lockdown across the country.
Help was once again at hand, when the State TB Unit once again reached out offering support. Dr Santosh Gupta, State TB Officer (STO), UP says, “With special thanks to our Hon’ble Chief Minister, our efforts to reach out to every TB patient in these unprecedented times has been well supported. The TB workforce has been able to reach to each patient amidst the corona crisis and distribute anti-TB medicines to them at their doorstep.” The field staff of NTEP UP connected with patients over the phone to ensure timely availability of medicines, address their concerns and link them with the available social support systems being provided by the government.
UP is India’s largest state and home to almost 20% of the total number of TB cases in the country. After the first COVID-19 case was reported on 4 March 2020 in the state, the countrywide lockdown was announced on 25 March 2020. As life came to a standstill for most people, it also presented tremendous challenges to health workers in maintaining uninterrupted treatment regime for patients. What’s inspiring is that these challenges only served to further strengthen their resolve to overcome all difficulties.
The challenges in the normal paradigm faced by TB patients as well as healthcare workers are immense. Coupled with the disruptions to current pandemic these have increased manifold. However, it is times like these that bring out the best in humanity, as demonstrated by TB health workers who have stepped up efforts to bring back hope and smiles in the lives of people with TB like Lata.
In addition to supporting the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare at the national level, WHO also provides on-the-ground support, which includes medical officers of the TB Technical Support Network.