Anantnag and Pulwama districts have been declared tuberculosis (TB) free as part of the sub-national certification for TB elimination from India.
State Tuberculosis Officer Dr. Adfar Qadri informed that two more districts- Anantnag and Pulwama have been declared TB-free. He said that Srinagar got the gold medal while Jammu and Kashmir got the bronze and most of the other districts maintained status quo. He said that now we have the pride of having three districts with three TB as Budgam was declared TB free in 2021.
He said that last year Kashmir got 3 gold medals and now they have advanced and Pulwama, Anantnag have been declared TB free.
He said that the cases of TB are decreasing in Kashmir. We will achieve TB elimination by 2025 as we are doing intensive and proactive case finding and case screening. There are 4 categories of recognition in reduction achievement of case targets, the top one being TB free status which means 80 per cent reduction.
Other categories include the gold medal category (more than 60 percent reduction), the silver medal category (more than 40 percent reduction) and the bronze medal category (more than 20 percent reduction).
Budgam was the first district to be declared TB free. Sub-national certification is an initiative to mark the progress of districts, states and union territories towards TB-free status which was launched in 2020 to achieve the target of TB-free India by 2025.