News & Events

New Delhi, Thursday, May 03, 2007: BD in India conducted a 2 day workshop entitled, "Mycobacteriology procedures: how to do things right," at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on 24th and 25th April, 2007.

The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India is in the process of rolling out the DOTS-plus program as an extension of the RNTCP (Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program). DOTS is the acronym for Directly Observed Treatment Short course. DOTS- plus  program is aimed at diagnosing and treating cases of Multi Drug Resistance TB.As a part of this roll out, the Central TB division (CTD) has plans to strengthen the mycobacterial culture and DST capabilities at National and Intermediate Reference laboratories. The above workshop was a part of BD’s commitment towards building capacity in laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in high burden countries and a step towards assisting the CTD in India in this direction.

This was the first time that such an exercise was conducted in collaboration with the CTD of the Government of India. The curriculum was designed in close consultation with the experts designated by CTD, which included faculty drawn from WHO; TRC, Chennai; AIIMS, New Delhi and PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai. The workshop was led by Dr. Salman Siddiqi, BD fellow, who traveled to India from the United States specifically for this event. The workshop was kicked off by Dr. L.S. Chauhan (Deputy Director General and Head of TB program in India). Participants included representatives from the national and intermediate reference labs, government and private medical colleges as well as private health care facilities.

The workshop was very well received both in terms of content and delivery as well as the quality of experts. Some of the key recommendations which were put forward during the course of workshop included:

• Extension of the accreditation services to the private health care facilities engaged in TB diagnosis (and including liquid cultures) thus enabling the private sector to assist the government through a public private partnership. 
• The development of an e-forum where national experts can be engaged into discussions and troubleshooting related to TB diagnostics. 
• The creation of a BD Bactec™ users' club which could meet periodically to share technology updates and best practices.

The recommendations related to accreditation of private health care facilities engaged in TB diagnosis have since been forwarded to the Central TB Division for further action.