Dr. Ashok Kumar Rai an expert on Tuberculosis. I have over 25 years of experience as a government employee in the department of health and family welfare, Government of Sikkim.

Experience:
•    Medical officer/sr. Medical officer-in-charge at different phcs and district hospital of sikkim (1998-2010).   
•    Medical officer tb control (2011-2014)
•    Nodal officer ictc and pptct (2011-2014)
•    Joint director cum district tb officer (2015-2018)
•    Additional director cum deputy state tb officer (2019-2020)
•    Additional director cum state tb officer (2021-till date)
Completed project:
•    Assessment of comparative performance of c-tb with quantiferon tb gold plus and tu tuberculin ppd r-t23 ssi in the tube for detection of tb infection in general and key populations – principal investigator
•    Understanding host and pathogen factors responsible for tb in sikkim-phase-1- co- principal investigator
•    Barrier to the utilization of service by tb patients under ntep in the east district of sikkim- principal investigator
Contributions on ntep:
•    Roll out all oral mdr/xdr tb regimen in sikkim – december 2019
•    Accreditation of line probe assay (lpa) in irl gangtok-may 2022
•    Training of all the specialists and medical officers in programmatic management of drug-resistant tb (pmdt)
•    Sensitizations of the honorable chief minister and councils of ministers about the national tb elimination program
•    Sensitizations of the honorable governor about the national tb elimination program and pradhan mantri tb mukt bharat abhiyan (pmtbmba)
•    Roll out of shorter bedaquiline containing mdr/rr tb regimen in the state of sikkim-1 jan 2022
•    Roll out of pmtpt in the state of sikkim-1 dec-2021
•    Operationalization of ni-kshay mitra under pmtbmba
•    Operationalization of ai based xray in two districts of sikkim-1st april-2023
Awards:
•    Received bronze medal in sub-national certifications for the reduction of incidence of tb by 20% as compared to 2015- 24th march 2022
•    Received award for the best-performing state in tb index <50 lakh population for three consecutive years.