Step seen as an initiative to curb rise in drugs resistance tuberculosis cases and relapse of disease
Maharashtra is set to roll out a daily drug regimen for tuberculosis patients from this September. The decision, which is seen as a huge steps towards curbing the rise in drugs resistance tuberculosis cases and relapse in TB patients, was announced by the Central TB division on Friday in a conference held in Mumbai.
Maharashtra is one of the five states in India where the Union health department is rolling out daily drug treatment for TB. Bihar, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim are the other states. The new regimen will replace the existing three times a week treatment and will be implemented across the country in a phased manner thereafter.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, director general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said: "While the daily drugs treatment for TB patients will start in all these five states by September, we are starting the daily medicines to paediatric and HIV patients suffering from TB from July. This move will help us reduce the burden of drugs resistance TB in the society."
On Friday, the state health department had one-day workshop involving high level stakeholders to discuss strategies for accelerating the progress of the TB control programme in Maharashtra. India is a country with the highest burden of TB. The World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics for 2014 give an estimated incidence figure of 2.2 million cases of TB for India out of a global incidence of 9 million.
Apart from Swaminathan, Dr Sunil Khaparde, deputy director general (TB control), ministry of health and family welfare and Dr Sanjeev Kamble, state tuberculosis officer and many of senior officials from health sector were present at the meeting. The Union health ministry decided to replace the old TB treatment regime as findings by health experts revealed that the old regimen led to increasing instances of drug resistance and relapse. The new TB treatment regimen will benefit over 1.25 lakh TB patients in Maharashtra.
Swaminathan added that the government is concerned about the disease and encouraging research in this field. During the meeting, national science consortium was also set up to promote research in TB medicines. "The private and government hospitals should bridge the gap and share data so we get the authentic data which helps to make a policy on new programme," Swaminathan said.
"In this new daily treatment regime, patients will have to take the medicines in fixed dose combination (FDC). A patient will first get one month's medicine. After finishing it, they will come for the follow up to take one more month's medicines," said Khaparde.
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