Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) is the new cluster at IPH that is being initiated by Sunitha. As part of this process, the first project is to incorporate AMS at 26 Karuna Trust Primary Health Centers (PHCs) in Karnataka by strengthening the Medicines and Therapeutics Committee (MTCs). An IEC application is being written up to seek ethical approval for the situational analysis phase of this project which aims to conduct a baseline study by documenting the current policies and practices that govern the pharmaceutical supply management of antibiotics at these 26 PHCs. Following the current prescribing indicators, including the prescribing pattern of antibiotics, the subsequent phase is designed to gather data on the Medicines and Therapeutics Indicators (MTI) for their PHC based contextual relevance before they could be incorporated as part of the Health Management Information System during the subsequent intervention phase of the project. This presentation is to seek feedback from peers at IPH so the IEC application is tweaked accordingly before submission on 15th Oct.

The seminar will discuss my observations about India’s tuberculosis epidemic, seen through the perspective of my training in infectious diseases and microbiology. I have spent the last year working with the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis on a research project that aimed at using protoemic methods to identify drug-resistance in TB. I spent a month in Mumbai, at the P.D. Hinduja hospital with Dr Camilla Rodrigues and Dr Zarir Udwadia, both world authorities on the microbiology and clinical management, respectively, of MDR-TB. Lastly, I visted hospitals and laboratories in rural India to try to understand their challenges with the diagnosis and management of TB.