Community Health Officers (CHOs) and Medical Officers (MOs) were trained on screening clients attending the Health and Wellness Centre (HWC) OPDs for presumptive TB using the 4S as well as the Al-powered app (cough for TB-HWC) on March 16 at the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Mokokchung office.
A press release by CMO Mokokchung office stated that the training was organised by NISHTHA Jhpiego, in collaboration with the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
As the next step, to initiate screening activities, the trainers from NISHTHA Jhpiego and Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence trained the trainees on TB presumptive treatment, utilization of Nikshay portal and AI powered “cough for TB-HWC” app.
The trainers stressed that the “cough for TB-HWC” app would act as an additional screening tool to the “four symptom complexes” for identifying presumptive TB cases.
The trainers emphasised that National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) guidelines are adhered to at all times and all presumptive TB cases with one or more of the 4S complexes are referred for testing to the linked facilities.
In addition, they said any case that was flagged as a potential presumptive TB case by the “cough for TB-HWC app”, irrespective of symptoms, shall also be referred for necessary investigations to diagnose or rule out TB.
The trainers were senior program officer-TB, NISHTHA Jhpiego, Dr. Jignesh Sureshbhai Parmar, solution manager, Wadhwani AI, Sameer Tikoo, business analyst, Vandana Vasudev and business analyst, Wadhwani AI, Anmol Aggarwal.