INDIA: Doctors and pharmacists failing to report a tuberculosis patient to government professionals will invite legal activities and may face imprisoning. The Centre declared the strict rule through a warning ahead of the World Tuberculosis Day on March 24.

TB was declared a notifiable disease in 2012 but misreports never led to any prosecution until now. The move comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India would get rid of the disease by 2025.

A notifiable disease is the one that has to be reported to the authorities so that rapid decisions can be taken to check its extent.

India reported 4,23,000 TB deaths in 2017 and an average of 211 new infections per 1,00,000 people were diagnosed. Currently, there are over 2.8 million cases in India, making it the TB capital of the world, as per a report by the World Health Organisations.

The notification states, “To ensure proper tuberculosis diagnosis and its management in patients and to further address the problem of emergence and spread of drug-resistance Tuberculosis, it is essential to collect all the information of the T.B. patients,”

The government has now asked every clinical establishment to notify the local public health authority and municipal health officer.

Also, all pharmacy, chemist, and druggist dispensing anti-tubercular medicine will have to keep a copy of the prescription.

Under the Gazette, all tuberculosis patients have also been encouraged to self-notify themselves with their details and those of the treating doctors. This would ensure complete and proper treatment of all TB patients.