‘Off the record patients hamper TB control’

LUCKNOW: TB patients ‘missing’ from government hospitals were a great hurdle in controlling tuberculosis in the country, said experts at the 70th NATCON, conference of pulmonary medicine experts at King George’s Medical University here on Saturday.

Dr Sunil D Khaparde, deputy director general (TB), union ministry of health, said, “According to an estimate there is no information about approximately eight lakh TB patients. It is not known whether they are being treated in private sector, have quit treatment or have developed drug resistance. We know nothing about them.”

He said out of over 20 lakh patients, some 15 lakh were notified while the rest were not registered. Several speakers including Prof Surya Kant, HoD, department of respiratory medicine at KGMU and Dr Rajendra Prasad, member, special task force for TB, emphasised on early case detection, community involvement to ensure treatment completion and prophylaxis for treatment of latent TB. “We need to get all possible best levels of standards of care for all TB patients,” said Prof Surya Kant.

Not only did every presumptive case of TB need accurate and early diagnosis, but also drug susceptibility testing (DST) was required without delay. DST provided critical information about a particular patient’s resistance or sensitivity towards specific anti-TB drugs, said Rahul Dwivedi. Every patient needed a combination of effective sensitive drugs as per the Standards of TB Care and other treatment guidelines, he said.