PERSONA THEME TRENDS WELL-BEING ISSUES RESEARCH NEWSCOPE
Tuberculosis: An Ancient Foe By Vignesh Narayan
D
eepti was sixteen years old, writing her board exams, when she developed a cough that just wouldn’t go away. After conventional treatment for a month, her doctor advised her to get a chest x-ray which revealed that she had contracted tuberculosis (TB). Despite treatment, Deepti’s condition continued to worsen. She had contracted a strain of TB that was resistant to multiple drugs (MDR or multi drug resistant) and would need surgery to remove part of her decaying lungs. She was given six months to live. In stark contrast to the lifestyle of Deepti; Salma, a resident of the Dharavi slums nearby, had gone to twelve different doctors searching for a cure for this disease. The strain she had contracted has been dubbed TDR or totally drug resistant and was resistant to 12 different anti-TB drugs. The disease ravaged her for two years, costed money she didn’t have and finally, claimed her life. India bears the dubious distinction of having the world’s largest number of deaths due to TB; 423,000 people in India succumbed to the disease in 2016, accounting for a third of the entire world’s TB mortality. These TB related deaths that have been identified and reported, the real numbers may be far graver. India has an estimated 1.3 million “missing” TB patients, who may not have been diagnosed or who have not returned for a follow-up post diagnosis, untreated and potentially spreading TB to others. In addition, WHO estimates that India saw 2.7 million new TB cases in 2016. When compared to the 6.3 million new cases worldwide, Indians accounted for a whopping 25% of all new TB infections. This is because of the singular and unique ability of the TB bacterium to hide inside the human body in a dormant state without causing the disease or revealing any outward symptoms. Such cases are classified as latent TB infections and can be revealed by diagnostic tests in healthy seemingly uninfected individuals. Studies
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Volume 4 | Issue 1 | January-March 2019
indicate that close to 40% of the Indian population is positive for latent TB and without treatment 5%-10% of these will develop active TB at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, due to the high burden of TB in India, the detection and treatment of latent TB is not prioritized, resulting in a huge reservoir of dormant and potentially infectious bacteria primed to emerge under favourable conditions. In 2017, 10 million people were infected with TB and 1.6 million died worldwide, surpassing AIDS as the world’s leading
cause of death due to an infectious disease. WHO has designated March 24t has the World TB Day to raise public awareness about TB and its deleterious effects on health, society and the economy. In 2015, it began to implement the ‘End TB Strategy’ which envisions a world free of TB with zero TB related deaths and zero incidences of the disease. In order to do this, WHO aims to support and promote a patient centric approach to care and prevention, encourage proactive policies and support systems by involving the government and private sector healthcare and finally
