Nagpur: The possibility of moving State TB Drugs Store from Nagpur to another place has been put to rest. The Store will remain in Nagpur. As the present building housing the State TB Drugs Store at TB Ward in dilapidated condition, the PWD had directed to demolish the building. This would have disrupted supply of TB medicines to 22 districts in the State. But since a space has been made available in the premises of office of Deputy Health Director, popularly known as Mata Kacheri, the State TB Drugs Store will remain in Nagpur.
The number of TB patients has been increasing day by day. In Maharashtra, there were 1,64,743 patients in 2017. The figure has now reached around 3 lakh. TB is cured by intake of regular medicines for nine months to one and a half years. A gap in the drugs makes the TB germs drug resistant.
A new space for the State TB Drugs Store was being searched for the last five months as the present building at TB Ward had become shabby. But now a new space is available at Mata Kacheri and the State TB Drugs Store will now be moved to the new space soon.
The Nagpur-based State TB Drugs Store supplies Dot Plus medicine for TB patients to districts in Vidarbha and Marathwada. Since 2011, the Store and Laboratory has been functioning from GMCH’s TB Ward premises.
Free TB medicines:
As part of the national target of eliminating Tuberculosis (TB) by 2025, the State Public Health Department has now in 2018 added a new scheme for eradication of the dreaded disease. Under the scheme, TB patients, irrespective of whether they are taking the treatment in private set up or government, are being given medication free at pre-identified private chemists under the Universal Access to TB Care Programme.
For the last three years, the patients were given medicines free from these medical shops and the cost was reimbursed to the chemists by the government. But now the government will supply these medicines to the shops and give fixed incentives to the pharmacies for storing and distributing them to the patients. The health department has identified over 150 shops in Nagpur for the project.
