Rito Paul
It’s well known that the TB bacilli can mutate, due to irregular or overuse of antibiotics, thus making it resistant to the very antibiotics used to treat the disease. Doctors now say that it is possible that a mutated strain of bacteria, as it multiplies and regenerates, can naturally reverse-mutate and lose their antibiotic resistance.
When Meena Srivastava was admitted to KJ Somaiya hospital in 2007, her chances of survival were minimal. She’d contracted a virulent strain of TB from her brother-in-law Keshav,who through negligence and irregular medicine consumption, had allowed his TB strain to mutate into extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB). Two other members of her family, including her husband, were suffering from the same ailment. Soon, Keshav passed away.
Dr KC Mohanty, HoD of the chest department at KJ Somaiya hospital, immediately started Meena and her relatives on a regiment of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) antibiotics.
They didn’t respond. Dr Mohanty then upgraded their medication to the antibiotics used to treat XDR-TB. This too proved to be futile for a while. Late in 2007, Meena’s husband and brother-in-law passed away. But then, something quite unexpected happened. Meena got better. Not because she was given some miracle drug; she just started responding to the same drugs that had killed three members of her family. “She started responding so well, that we were able to downgrade her medicines, and treat her with a combination of MDR-TB and first line drugs,” says Dr Mohanty.
How did this happen? Dr Mohanty says, “It is possible that as her bacilli multiplied, they reverse-mutated and became less virulent. This made the antibiotics that were previously ineffective, potent.”
However, there isn’t yet any certainty on the matter. “There are many factors that can make the patient suddenly respond to the drugs while under treatment. It’s difficult to conclude that the bacilli reverse-mutated naturally,” said a chest specialist who didn’t want to be named.
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