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Maharashtra boosts support for TB control through private sector partnership
The Maharashtra government has stepped up its support for patient provider support agencies (PPSA) to help find and treat more tuberculosis patients as part of the national strategy to eliminate the disease. PPSA is a model where a non-governmental organisation/third-party agency is selected by the state/city/district unit of the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) to engage private-sector doctors.
The agencies engage with private practitioners to ensure delivery of standardised TB care services. This effort has been successful in improving TB case detection and treatment outcomes, according to officials.
'Engaging the private sector is a vital element of the NTEP. To support this effort, the state has extended its support to more PPSAs. In the last six months (January till June), over half of the 1.13 lakh new TB cases have been reported from the private sector,' Dr Sandeep Sangale, joint director (TB and leprosy), Maharashtra, told The Indian Express.
Dr Sangale explained that these agencies serve as a bridge between the state/district NTEP and the private healthcare sector and ensure that patients in private care have access to NTEP-supported services.
Currently, PPSA is functional in 80 NTEP districts through seven agencies: Maharashtra Janvikas Kendra (MJK), ALERT India, Doctors for You (DFY), Gurukrupa Vikas Sanstha, DISHA foundation, Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust (HLFPPT) and Network of Maharashtra by People living with AIDS/HIV (NMP+).
Study shows evidence for public-private partnerships in TB elimination
Given that nearly half of TB patients seek care from private providers, a new study shows well-funded public-private partnerships are no longer an option but essential for TB elimination goals. Published in the Indian Journal of Tuberculosis, the study provides compelling evidence for the effectiveness of this model based on a decade-long analysis of Maharashtra's TB programme (2011-2020).
The study, published by researchers Ajith Ramalingam, Ranjit Mankeshwar, and Geeta Pardeshi, demonstrates how the effective utilisation of the National Health Mission (NHM) has directly improved TB outcomes in Maharashtra. The findings demonstrate that higher utilisation of funds—particularly in key operational areas such as supervision, public–private partnerships, and contractual services—is strongly associated with improved TB outcome indicators, increased case notification, treatment success rates and reduced case fatality rates.
'The analysis of NHM funds for the NTEP in Maharashtra from 2011 to 2020 revealed a consistent increase in both the allocation and utilisation of funds over the decade, with significant peaks observed in 2019 and 2020,' researchers said.
In Maharashtra, the programme achieved its strongest outcomes when public-private partnerships were well-funded, with public–private mix (PPM) components showing a high median utilisation of 85.25 per cent, among the best across all programme areas. Central to this success was the PPSA model, backed by steadily rising contractual services funding over the decade, they added.
Anuradha Mascarenhas is a journalist with The Indian Express and is based in Pune. A senior editor, Anuradha writes on health, research developments in the field of science and environment and takes keen interest in covering women's issues. With a career spanning over 25 years, Anuradha has also led teams and often coordinated the edition.
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