Dimapur, January 22 (MExN): Recognising the urgent need for TB prevention among the people living with HIV (PLHIV) community and to end TB related deaths, the ARK Foundation along with Dimapur Network of Positive People organised a Treatment Literacy Workshop on TB Preventive Therapy (TPT) on January 20.
At the workshop held at the conference hall of the CMO, Dimapur, Dr Susan from ITECH, and Ketho Angami, President, ARK Foundation spoke on Tuberculosis (TB), and its impact on the PLHIV community.
While awareness on COVID-19 vaccination was provided to the participants with the objective of enabling them make informed decision was delivered by Dr Susan, the concept and importance of TPT underlining LTBI treatment as prevention of active TB was shared by Ketho, informed a press release.
During the same, ARK Foundation President lamented that the only available option presently of TPT in the country is isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT), which has failed to deliver as planned.
Given this situation, he appraised the participants about the availability of a new therapy in the form of 3HP, which stands for once weekly dosing with a drug combination of Isoniazid (H) and Rifapentine (P).
This therapy is far better than the present IPT as it is a shorter course therapy and more effective with a better cure rate.
As such, the demand for this has been an advocacy agenda for ARK Foundation since the past months, he noted. He further urged the participants to disseminate the information to other affected communities so as to create more noise towards demanding 3HP in India.
As a way forward, the programme concluded with the participants planning to conduct a signature campaign drive which will be used as a tool to further advocate with the central TB division and NACO for a national roll out, without further delay, added the release from the ARK Foundation.
