District Collector Sibi Adhithya Senthil Kumar launched the Josh (Joint Squad for Health) team initiative under the Tuberculosis-Free India campaign at the Cuddalore Collectorate on Thursday to strengthen tuberculosis (TB) prevention, awareness and community participation across the district..

The Collector said district and block-level coordination committees had been constituted to expand TB elimination activities. Each block-level team would include a nodal officer, a coordinator, five MY Bharat volunteers and five National Cadet Corps volunteers.

The teams would support TB prevention efforts, take awareness messages to rural communities and encourage greater public participation in measures adopted to combat the disease, he said.

Mr. Kumar said nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) were being used to diagnose tuberculosis accurately. Outreach teams were also visiting villages to conduct X-ray examinations for people with symptoms. Various measures were being implemented under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme towards the goal of eliminating TB and creating a TB-free India by 2030.