Cultural Impact On Healthcare In India

Describe the current efforts to decrease the morbidity and mortality of the issue or disease.

 

Introduction:

Tuberculosis an ancient chronic disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis still remains one of the leading causes of death across the globe. Under developed and developing countries being the worst affected. There are three types of TB namely MDR multi drug resistant), XDR (extensively drug resistant) and TDR (Totally drug resistant). India has become highest TB burden country with 3.2 million out of 8.7 million cases globally as per 2011 survey by WHO. Approximately 40% of Indian population is affected by various types of TB. India is the seventh largest country of Asia and second most populous country in the world. It has tenth largest GDP and third largest PPP in the world (Davies, 2007).

Risk factors:

Several factors act as a risk factor for development of TB (Faurholt-Jepsen, 2011). Some of them are mentioned as below:

• Poverty
• Drug abuse
• Diabetes
• Low quality of living
• HIV

Cultural impact on healthcare in India:

The diverse religions, cultures and languages in India deeply influence its health care system and present several challenges in managing common to complex diseases. Often primary care is not being assessed which results into adverse affect upon health (Worthington & Gogne, 2011).

Programs and planning to eradicate TB:

Several programs both from governmental and non-governmental organizations are being run aiming to minimize the number of cases and slowly to eradicate TB from the country. Government recently started a five year plan (2012 -2017) the theme of which is that all TB patients should get access to quality diagnosis and treatment in the community. Major focus of the plan is early detection of the disease including the drug resistant form (Lönnroth, 2010).

References:

Davies, J. B., Shorrocks, A., Sandstrom, S., & Wolff, E. N. (2007). The world distribution of household wealth. Center for Global, International and Regional Studies.

Faurholt-Jepsen, D., Range, N., PrayGod, G., Jeremiah, K., Faurholt-Jepsen, M., Aabye, M. G., ... & Friis, H. (2011). Diabetes is a risk factor for pulmonary tuberculosis: a case-control study from Mwanza, Tanzania. PLoS One, 6(8), e24215.

Lönnroth, K., Castro, K. G., Chakaya, J. M., Chauhan, L. S., Floyd, K., Glaziou, P., & Raviglione, M. C. (2010). Tuberculosis control and elimination 2010–50: cure, care, and social development. The Lancet, 375(9728), 1814-1829.

Worthington, R. P., & Gogne, A. (2011). Cultural aspects of primary healthcare in india: A case-based analysis. Asia Pacific family medicine, 10(1), 1-5.