Puducherry has become the first region in India to incorporate tuberculosis (TB) screening under the Family Adoption Programme (FAP), an initiative led by the National Medical Council (NMC) where medical students adopt families for holistic health monitoring throughout their undergraduate course.
As part of FAP, each medical student adopts 3–5 families, conducting health follow-ups during their entire MBBS course. When students adopt a family, they screen all members for tuberculosis as a part of the routine health monitoring and follow them for the next four years.
This innovative integration makes use of the 1,500+ medical students across Puducherry’s ten medical colleges (three government and seven private), who now actively screen adopted families for TB symptoms.
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The initiative is supported by the state through free sputum collection, transport, and diagnostic services, making it a scalable and resource-efficient model in India’s fight to eliminate TB. Through their dedicated TB Core Committees and collaboration with the State TB Cell, the medical colleges in Puducherry contribute to over 50% of all TB notifications.
According to Dr. C. Venkatesh, State TB Officer, mapped high-risk individuals with comorbidities are tested with sensitive tools and tracked periodically for early detection and treatment. “This has helped identify and monitor cases that might otherwise go undetected,” he said.
“This approach strengthens TB surveillance and empowers students to become active public health leaders,” said Dr. S. Govindarajan, NHM Mission Director.
So far, about 5.2 lakh individuals have been screened door-to-door by community medicine departments of these colleges, and 25 confirmed TB cases have been identified.
Puducherry’s TB elimination efforts have received accolades from the Central TB Division, including back-to-back awards for best-performing State Task Force in the zone. The model’s success is now being considered a template for national scaling.
