| REVIEW ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2015 | Volume
: 1
| Issue : 1 | Page : 6-11 |
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Standards for tuberculosis care in India, a road map to universal access in quality tuberculosis care
Anil J Purty, Zile Singh, Joy Bazroy, Ramesh C Chauhan, N Murugan
Department of Community Medicine, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry, India
Correspondence Address:
Anil J Purty
Department of Community Medicine, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry - 605 014
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
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Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world's deadliest communicable diseases. In 2013, an estimated 9.0 million people developed TB, and 1.5 million died from the disease. The International Standards for TB Care (ISTC) were formulated to develop uniform guidelines for ensuring the delivery of widely accepted level of care by all healthcare workers in managing TB patients or those suspected to have TB. In India, the quality of care for TB patients receive varies considerably and often is not in accordance with the international standards. In this article, we provide an overview of the recent standards for TB care in India (STCI). These standards were developed after a national level consultation meeting involving over 120 national and international experts, these have been supported by the World Health Organization guidelines pertaining to TB care and are duly approved by the Central TB Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. The STCI has outlined 26 standards (diagnosis: 1–6; treatment: 7–11; public health: 12–21; social inclusion: 22–26) for effective prevention and control of TB in India. These standards need to be widely disseminated to all stakeholders to ensure universal access in quality TB care is available to all patients. The community health providers (both private and public), and governments should work as partners with a view to improve TB care and enhance the effectiveness of the healthcare process so that the ISTC is objectively implemented in day-to-day practice.
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