New Delhi, Oct. 8 -- Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Thursday asserted that India is "very close" to achieving the goal of eliminating tuberculosis as he launched the Joint Squad for Health (JOSH) teams that will bring together more than 58,000 youth volunteers to strengthen grassroots mobilisation in the fight against the disease.
India's TB incidence, he noted, has declined by 21 per cent compared with a 12 per cent global decline, while the country's treatment coverage has reached 92 per cent against 78 per cent globally, and called for a "last push" to achieve the TB-free India goal.
"Today is a very historic day on which we are launching the JOSH team," Nadda said at the national launch of the initiative at Bharat Mandapam here.
"We have reached very close to the target. We need to give the last push," he said. The minister said the government has involved MPs, MLAs, mayors and councillors in the TB elimination campaign through workshops and other programmes, but the effort cannot succeed without the participation of volunteers and grassroots workers.
Nadda said the JOSH initiative was developed in discussions with Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth, with the participation of the Sports and Defence ministries.
The JOSH teams will bring together My Bharat volunteers and NCC cadets to work at the grassroots level and strengthen community participation in the TB elimination campaign.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, who attended the launch, called for greater youth participation in the national TB elimination campaign. "The combined strength of health, youth and defence is giving this national mission a broad public participation-driven character," she said.
Gupta said JOSH teams would take awareness about prevention, early detection and treatment to communities. "JOSH teams will work across the country with the resolve that 'TB will lose, India will win'," she said.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.