The Pharmacy Application is a web and mobile-based application developed by IHAT in close coordination with the Government of Uttar Pradesh Food, Safety & Drug Administration, NHM, the State TB Cell, and UP-TSU. Uttar Pradesh (UP), contributing 16% of India’s population and 33% of Anti Tuberculosis Treatment (ATT) drug sales, notified over 0.6 million TB cases in 2023, while the India TB Prevalence Survey 2019-21 estimates are higher, revealing a substantial notification gap.

Recognising that a large proportion of TB patients first seek care through private practitioners and pharmacies, the application digitises the capture of Schedule H1 anti-TB treatment (ATT) drug sales, which were previously recorded manually, incompletely and challenging to analyse.

This web and mobile-based platform enables pharmacists to record patient-level drug sales of ATT drugs. Accurate identification of missing TB  cases is done through data triangulation and field verification, as drugs are often bought by others on behalf of individuals on treatment. The Pharmacy application helps identify individuals receiving TB treatment who have not yet been notified in the government System-Ni-kshay, thereby addressing critical gaps in case detection and reporting, and enabling these patients to also access government benefits for TB diagnosis and care.

The application also supports public health teams by providing actionable insights through dashboards and analytics. It facilitates follow-up with unnotified patients, engagement with private providers, and linkage to government support. Its user-friendly design, offline functionality, and secure data handling make it practical and scalable across diverse settings.

Pilot implementation has demonstrated significant potential to identify missed TB cases and improve reporting completeness. With planned scale-up, the Pharmacy Application is poised to enhance collaboration between private pharmacies and the public health system and strengthen recording of sales as per the H1 schedule of drugs.

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