Navi Mumbai: NMMC to conduct active campaign to detect tuberculosis and leprosy cases

Navi Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has started an awareness programme to detect tuberculosis and leprosy cases actively from September 13, 2022.

It will be conducted in two phases. The first phase will be conducted from 13 to 16 September and the second phase from September 26 to October 7, 2022.

The civic health department will conduct the guidance of municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar. With the help of 181 teams, who will go door-to-door, a total of 3,37,522 people will be examined and awareness will be created.

Each team will visit at least 25 to 20 households per day to collect information.

“With the help of this campaign, undiagnosed leprosy and tuberculosis patients in the community can be detected early and multi-drug therapy can be started. This will help in detecting and controlling the chain of infection,” said NMMC chief.

He further informed that each team will have one female and one male health department member. Examination of women in each house will be done by female staff and men will be checked by male staff.

Leprosy is characterized by pale/reddish dull patches on the skin, lack of sweating, thick, dull oily/shiny skin, nodules on the skin, thickening of the earlobes, thinning of the eyebrow hair, inability to fully close the eyes etc.

Examination will be done by asking for symptoms. For tuberculosis, symptoms such as cough for more than two weeks, fever for more than two weeks, significant weight loss, blood in sputum, lump on the neck will be examined.

If a person with the symptoms is found, they will be referred to the medical officer for further diagnosis.