KARACHI: Sindh government has decided to screen every new child being admitted to school for tuberculosis (TB), and the positive ones for HIV/AIDS as well.

A high-profile meeting on communicable diseases of TB, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis-B chaired by Sindh Minister for Health and Population Welfare Dr Azra Pechuho on Monday said that the decision to this effect had been taken to curb spread of communicable diseases across the province.

The meeting said that sentinel sites designed to screen and detect 32 communicable and infectious diseases had been set up throughout the province and these sites had been connected to the districts’ command and control centres that reported to the director general of health offices of the district.

It said that pharmacies would now be systematised to report to Sindh Healthcare Com­mission and district health departments to stop sale of drugs over counterfeit prescriptions.

This measure would enable clinics and medical institutes to keep a record of infections as well as those prescribing medication for them and would decrease instances of negligence and foul play, it said.

The meeting said that NGOs that worked on communicable infectious diseases would also be required to work closely with the government to ensure and enable accountability and transparency.

It said that due to a multitude of stakeholders, four per cent of the potentially infected individuals who did not have national identity cards and had been screened for communicable diseases had gone “missing” as they did not report for follow-up screening.

The minister reiterated the importance of tracking all those who had gone missing after initial screenings as these individuals could be the reason for further drug resistance when it came to TB and HIV/AIDS.

In order to curb infections in the province pregnant women in Ratodero and Larkana would also be screened for HIV/AIDS as well as TB, she said.

The meeting said that since cases of TB were being detected among children aged 0-4, a practice of reverse contact tracing would be used under which parents and grandparents of these children would also be screened in order to pinpoint the location of infection spread.

If some individuals were unable to pay for their registration for screenings, the government would pay for them to ensure their registration, it said.

The meeting called for counselling mothers, clergy and community elders to sensitise the community to HIV/AIDS and help remove the stigma attached to the disease and facilitate its treatment.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2021