Finally some good news after the death of three XXDR-TB patients in Mumbai.
Of the 12 patients affected by the virulent strain of XXDR-TB (extensively drug resistant tuberculosis), seven are responding very well to medication, said Dr Ashok Kumar, director general of the TB Centre in Delhi.
Dr Kumar was part of the team who flew down to the city to gauge the severity of the disease and develop a plan to counter it.
“Four of the patients have tested negative, which means they have very low levels of TB and three of them are responding well to the drugs,” he said.
The patients, doctors said, are responding to very potent and high-grade antibiotics that are not usually used as TB medication.
Dr Kumar said labelling this particular strain of TB as “totally drug resistant” or TDR was premature by PD Hinduja Hospital and that it should have been called XXDR-TB instead.
Dr Camilla Rodrigues, head of microbiology department at Hinduja Hospital, said: “What we meant when we said it was totally drug resistant, is that it was totally resistant to the first and second line drugs we had tested. Not that it was resistant to every available antibiotic.”
She added that a few of the antibiotics currently in use were very costly. “The cost of TB treatment with these expensive drugs can go up to Rs5 lakh.”
The state government has now decided to include the expensive XXDR-TB drugs in the DOTS programme, which means that they will be available to patients for free. The state will also financially help the family of a patient if he or she is the sole breadearner.
Comments