Today’s topic was about directly observed therapy for tuberculosis. We spent the day with the staff epidemiologist learning about TB in India and how they use the DOTS system. Some interesting things we learned:
India does not treat latent TB since they are still in the phase of controlling active TB.
TB is extremely prevalent in India; a patient with suggestive symptoms of TB is treated with anti-TB medications without microbiological confirmation (based on clinical suspicion).
Only we [from Detroit] were super excited to see a slide very positive with AFB (clearly this is not rare for them like it is for us)
Each DOTS center in New Delhi serves an area of about 100,000 people. Each center is located within 4km from a person’s home to make sure there is access.
Comments