TB programme for tribals: Vizag GIMSR professor gets Rs 31L grant from ICMR
“The ICMR will fund the entire initiative for a year,” said Dr. Rajyalakshmi
By Anoushka Caroline Williams Published on 19 May 2023 5:30 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A medical expert from GITAM Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (GIMSR), Visakhapatnam has received a research grant from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The grant is for developing a successful programme in line with the national goal of eradicating tuberculosis (TB) among the country’s tribal population due to the urgency for collective action against the disease.
Dr. Rajyalakshmi, MBBS, MD (community medicine), an assistant professor in the department of community medicine at GIMSR, has been granted Rs. 31 lakhs to direct the programme on “Comprehensive Tribal Management for Decentralised TB Care Services” for a period of two years.
“The ICMR will fund the entire initiative for a year,” said Dr. Rajyalakshmi.
“As the project’s principal investigator, I plan out actions to manage the project’s scientific and programmatic aspects in coordination with the various tribal authorities at various levels, including the Institutional Ethics Committee, district DMHO, the tribal authorities concerned, gram panchayat officials, and forest officials,” explained Dr. Rajyalakshi.
Besides overseeing the integrity and safety of acquired data and assuring the project’s completion, correctness, and timeliness, she is also responsible for micro-planning, project progress, etc.
The Comprehensive Tribal TB Management Programme for Decentralised TB Care Services project, a multi-centric study involving the tribal population, will be carried out concurrently in numerous regions of the nation, including Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha, and Meghalaya, as well as Visakhapatnam and Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh).
“Andhra Pradesh has 33 indigenous groups and an estimated 4.2 million residents. The initiative has so far reached three mandals in Visakhapatnam’s Paderu tribal region,” said Dr. Rajyalakshmi.
Dr. Subbarayudu Boda, Dr. Chaitanya Gujjarlapudi, Dr. N.G. Nagamani, Dr. Kuppli Sai Sushma, and Dr. Vennam Bodhi Sri Vidya are the co-investigators in the study.
In order to intensify case discovery through camps for this project, GIMSR erected an Rs. 7 lakh TruNAAT machine in the Hukumpeta mandal (Paderu). In order to diagnose tuberculosis (TB), GIMSR also made a mobile X-ray unit available to the outreach community and enlisted the help of six local tribe members.
The National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP), which is a Centrally-sponsored programme being carried out under the auspices of the National Health Mission (NHM) with resource sharing between the state governments and the Central government, is already in place in India under the ministry of health and family welfare.
India has one of the most extensive tuberculosis (TB) loads in the world, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged at the One World TB Summit in March this year to eradicate TB in India by 2025.
