Half of drug-resistant TB patients

Almost half of the estimated 4,40,000 cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in 2008 were reported from India and China, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report has revealed.

“In sheer numbers, Asia bears the brunt of the epidemic. Almost 50 per cent of the MDR-TB cases worldwide are estimated to occur in China and India.The highest estimated numbers of MDR-TB emerging in these two countries are approximately 1,00,000 cases each,” says the WHO’s Multi-drug and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis-2010, Global Report on Surveillance and Response.

“The reason for such a situation is irregular treatment”, says Dr L S Chauhan, Deputy Director in the Health Ministry’s TB Division. “Amongst the total 1.9 million new cases detected every year, 30 per cent of the cases go out of the programme. Most of them who leave the treatment are migratory population and cannot be caught easily.” Released ahead of the World TB Day (March 24), the report says TB programmes face tremendous challenges in reducing MDR-TB rates as progress remains “slow” in most countries. Nearly 3.6 per cent of all TB cases globally are MDR-TB cases. In 2008, MDR-TB killed an estimated 1,50,000 persons worldwide. In some parts of the world, including three places in Russia, one in four TB patients develops MDR-TB, a form of the disease that cannot be treated with standard drugs.

The report says that while 60 per cent of patients treated for TB were reported as cured, only an estimated 7 per cent of MDR-TB patients could be diagnosed as “contemporary diagnostics for MDR-TB are available in less than half of the high-burden countries”.

For forther: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/WHO--Half-of-drug-resistant-TB-patients-in-India--China/593850