The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has opened the first dedicated store for tuberculosis (TB) drugs in the city.
The medicine shop has been set up at a cost of about Rs10 lakh at the tuberculosis hospital in Sewri.
The facility will ease the availability of critical TB drugs, which were hitherto sourced from Pune and Nagpur. The step is part of the central government’s Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) through which patients get treatment free of cost.
“The Centre purchases TB drugs in bulk from pharma companies. This procurement process takes between six to 12 months. Drug packs for patients would make their way to the western region drug store in Ahmedabad, from where they were supplied to Pune and Nagpur. Now, we will get them directly from Delhi,” said a senior official in the BMC’s health department.
The shelf life of some injections like cyclocyrine and pyridoxine is barely six months. Direct procurement will eliminate delays that often result in expiry of such drugs. The cost of the drugs amounts to between Rs1 lakh and Rs2 lakh a year per patient.
The rising trend of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases has been a huge bother for health authorities in Mumbai. The number of cases has shot up from 64 in 2010 to over 2,500 this year.
In addition there are 64 extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) cases.
“An increasing number of patients are registering for the standardised treatment regimen for MDR. This has happened due to the awareness among private practitioners, who now advise patients to avail of the Directly Observed Therapy short course (DOTS),” said Dr Minni Khetarpal, officer in charge of the civic body’s TB campaign.
Mumbai has been accorded state-level status after the scare that resulted from extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) strains which had been identified in January last year. In this scheme, each civic ward will be a district that will have a separate official for TB.
Khetarpal explained that the air-conditioned drug store is equipped with vector control mechanisms to prevent infestation. Most of the drugs require to be preserved at a temperature of 18-20 degrees. The stocks are sufficient to meet the requirements of patients for at least two months.
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