02/09/2013
In what could be one of the biggest setbacks for India’s tuberculosis control programme, there is a massive stock-out of anti-TB drugs across the nation.
Every year, 18 lakh patients need treatment for TB along with 1 lakh multi drug-resistant TB cases. However, the Central government will exhaust its inventory of drugs by July end. This means patients run the risk of either developing drug-resistant TB or losing their lives.
Across the nation, in almost every State, there is limited supply of drugs like Rifampicin and Isoniazid, the first line drugs used to treat TB. A senior Union Health Ministry official, who declined to be quoted, said that the situation is critical. Paediatric drugs have already run out and children were not being able to avail of the treatment in the public sector. Many are being turned away from centres.
Ironically, India is among the largest producers of anti-TB drugs globally. But at home, patients are struggling to obtain medicines. In a letter addressed to Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Union Health Minister, T. K. Ray of Voice of Patient, an organization representing TB patients, said: “[A] large number of patients being treated under the public health system are being deprived of the full course of proper treatment. Around 3,00,000 re-treatment cases, about 90,000 child TB cases and about 5,000 multi-drug resistant TB patients are not being treated according to existing protocols due to shortage of drugs at hospitals, State and district stores in the last one year. There has been no or very erratic supply of many drugs, both first and second line to the States.”-- source the hindu.