India to expand access to MDR-TB drug by November

India will receive 3,000 courses of life-saving tuberculosis drug bedaquiline from Johnson & Johnson through United States Agency for International Development (USAID) this year. This will enable the government to expand the programme to 140 government-run TB centres across the country by November. 

So far, India has provided bedaquiline to only 300 patients diagnosed with multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, with another 300 courses available. Government officials say that 1,000 courses will be available as early as May.
India has 28 lakh TB patients, and about 79,000 are MDR TB cases. The government plans to eliminate the disease by 2025.

Bedaquiline is currently available only at six centres across India, including Mumbai and Delhi, under a strictly-monitored Conditional Access Programme (CAP).

“We’ve decided to expand the programme pan-India. Training of health officials on handling the drug has been done in several states,” Dr Sunil D Khaparde, Deputy Director General (TB), Ministry of Health.

The government said it has been “slow and cautious” in rolling out the drug to ensure people don’t develop resistance to it. “The the states needed to be equipped with the required diagnostic tools before the roll-out,” he added.

Beating MDR-TB

Groups like Lawyers Collective and Medecins Sans Frontieres have called for expanded access to bedaquiline, and delamanid, another drug for late-stage TB patients marketed by Japan’s Otsuka Holdings Co Ltd.