NEW DELHI: People diagnosed with tuberculosis—one of the most contagious diseases—may soon get paid leave for the period when their infection is the most severe and the risk of spreading it to others is the highest. This is part of a proposed “Tuberculosis at Workplace” policy of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that will lay down guidelines for employers on tackling TB in offices and controlling its spread. The proposed policy says that employers, in the public and private sectors will have to offer TB screening in health check-ups offered by them to employees, and facilitate the availability of TB medicines to patients requiring them in offices.
Officials in the Revised National TB Control Programme division of the health ministry said that the need for such a comprehensive policy was felt as an important step towards achieving the Union government’s goal of eliminating TB by 2025 in the country.
India has the largest TB burden in the world as it is home to about 2.8 million patients suffering from it, but it has pledged to bring it down to less than 43 per lakh population in the next seven years-five years ahead of the global “End TB” target of 2030.
“The TB at workplace strategy has proposed that employers will mandatorily have to grant paid leaves to employees diagnosed with TB during the most infectious period, which usually lasts 10-15 days,” an official with the Programme told this newspaper.
“There will, however, be more discussion on this before a final policy is adopted and notified,” he added.
Yogesh Jain of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, who has extensively worked for TB control in Chhattisgarh, said that employers should not only grant leave but also not penalise the patients with dismissal or downgrading their job profile after the diagnosis, until at least a few years after their treatment is over.
“And this leave should be for two reasons- one, because in the first two to four weeks people may be infectious to others, and second, to start feeling better from their serious illness- like bone or brain TB, or intestinal TB --three latter manifestations which are not infectious but cause much misery to the sufferer,” he said.
TB in India
TB deaths in India every year-4 lakh
Number of TB patients in India-2.8 million
Percentage of world’s TB patients in India-27%
Percentage of world’s TB deaths in India-32%