Times of India: Hyderabad: Saturday,
February 25, 2017.
In what is
likely to raise a serious cause of concern, the Telangana state recorded a
whopping 45,160 new Tuberculosis (TB) cases in 2016, up from 41,343 cases in
2015. The data was obtained by a city-based NGO Helping Hand Foundation under
Right to Information Act.
Though public
sector hospitals continued to report most of the new TB cases, the increase in
numbers is being attributed to a big jump in detection of new TB cases by
private hospitals as compared to in 2015. While public sector hospitals
detected 39,375 new cases in 2016 and 39,498 new cases in 2015, private
hospitals reported 5,785 new cases in 2016 and 1,845 new cases in 2015.
"With TB
being a notifiable disease because of its airborne nature in spreading the
disease, the numbers of new TB cases being reported have increased in the
private sector in 2016. But still, many private hospitals do not report such
cases to the he alth authorities," said Mujtaba Hasan Askari, founder, NGO
Helping Hand Foundation.
What's
shocking is that when it comes to districts, the data shows Hyderabad topping
the charts with highest number of 6,309 new Tuberculosis (TB) cases detected in
state run hospitals in 2016. Not far behind is Ranga Reddy district with 3,972
new TB cases during the same period.
This is not
all as the data obtained by NGO Helping Hand Foundation using Right to
Information act (RTI) from Telangana State TB office shows another stark and
shocking truth: Health authorities are clueless about 213 missing patients
suffering from the deadly multi drug-re sistant (MDR) version of TB detected in
last two years.
"In last
two years, health authorities detected 1,722 new drug resistant TB cases
including 905 cases in 2016 and 817 cases in 2015 respectively . But what is a
cause of serious alarm is that no one knows the whereabouts of 213 drug
resistant TB patients. They can surely infect others if they remain
untreated," added Mujtaba Hasan Askari.
In fact,
experts point out how routine TB cases turn into MDR TB through negligence of
the patients. "TB germs take a long time and multiple drugs to die.That's
why TB medicines have to be taken from six to nine months and sometimes even
longer. For MDR TB, one needs to be treated for two to two and half years at
least," said Dr Nalini N, consultant pulmonolgist at the Continental
Hospital.
However,
sources said that the Telangana state Revised National TB Control Program
(RNTCP) office is yet to introduce the new block buster drug `Bedaquiline'
(BDQ) for treating MDR TB patients. "Bedaquiline is a modern drug. It will
soon be rolled out after TB officials receive training ext month," said Dr
Ch Surya Prakash, state TB officer and joint director, RNTCP.
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