Govt to follow daily drug regimen for TB treatment

The Rajasthan government plans to follow a daily drug regimen for treating tuberculosis (TB) by replacing the existing three times a week treatment, said a state health department official.

Prior starting the programme, effort was made to update the exact number of TB patients in the state, said state TB officer Dr Dilip Kala. “Hopefully by mid2017, the daily drug regimen will be started,” he said, adding that the theme of this year’s World TB Day to be celebrated on March 24 is “Unite to End TB”.

The daily drug regimen was introduced in five states, including Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh in 2016.

Under the daily drug regimen, new drug-sensitive TB cases will be treated by using fixed combination of the first line drugs in accordance to the patient’s weight, Kala said.

At present, tuberculosis patients are administered medicines on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, apart from a daily dose of three to four tablets for the first six months, said Dr Narendra Khippal at the SMS medical college’s institute of respiratory diseases.

“With the daily drug regimen, we hope to tackle TB, improve treatment rates, help in reducing relapse rates and number of drug resistant TB cases,” he said.

A total of 90,579 TB patients were identified in the state until 2016 and patients were being provided treatment, health department officials said.

The cure rate has increased to 91% and the department is also taking measures to fill the vacant posts of senior treatment and laboratory supervisors and other posts in TB programme.

National Health Mission chief Naveen Jain last month directed healthcare workers to make entry of TB patients undergoing treatment in private facilities on Nishchay software and launched a month-long campaign from February 25.

Asha workers have been directed to regular visit their neighbourhoods to collect information about existing TB patients and also identify patients with TB symptoms on prescribed forms, said health department officials.

India accounts for 2.8 million of the 10.4 million new tuberculosis cases across the world, according to the World Health Organisation’s Global TB report 2016.