24 March 2010
By Umesh Isalkar
Pune, India
Drug–resistant tuberculosis will be detected faster by next year. The Union government has identified 43 places across the country to launch rapid screening of multiple drug–resistant tuberculosis (MDR–TB) by the end of 2011.
The facility as opposed to the conventional method that takes over three months to confirm a single drug–resistant case will give the report within two days. In Maharashtra, the facility is coming up at Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.
“We have identified 43 places in the country to launch the rapid screening of MDR–TB where the testing labs will be operational by 2011–end,” L S Chauhan, deputy director general (tuberculosis), union ministry of health and family welfare, New Delhi told TOI on Tuesday.
“While the facilities at Nagpur and Pune will be fully government sponsored. The one at Mumbai will be made available through public–private partnership at Hinduja Hospital,” added Chauhan.
“The benefits of the testing facility includes rapid diagnosis in patients who are under high suspicion for MDR–TB. The conventional method of testing the MDR–TB takes around three month to confirm a single drug–resistant case. However, the proposed facility will make the report available within two days with the help of advanced detection test called Line Probe Assasy (LPA),” said Chauhan, adding, “LPA detects resistance to rifampicin (a first–line drug used to treat TB), which indicates multi–drug resistant TB.”
State tuberculosis officer Sharad Sabnis said, “The rapid testing facility at Nagpur's government medical college will be launched on Wednesday on the occasion of World Tuberculosis Day. The facility at Pune's Aundh Civil Hospital will take shape in the next few months.”
Multidrug–resistant TB (MDR–TB) is caused by bacteria that are resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, the anti–TB drugs most commonly used. It may be caused by infection with the resistant bacterium or the resistance may appear during treatment. It is most commonly caused by failure to complete the normal six–month course of treatment or the use of substandard or counterfeit drugs, said Sabnis.
TB Stats: Maharashtra
- Total number of TB patients: 1.37 lakh
- Fresh cases detected every month: 10,000
- Total number of suspected MDR-TB patients: 4,000
- Total number of confirmed MDR-TB patients: 215
- Total number of TB patients: 3,712
- Fresh cases detected TB cases every month: 300
- Total number of suspected MDR patients: 82
- India has 3.8 million TB patients at any time
- Two people die of TB in India every 3 minutes, more than 1,000 every day and 3.7 lakh every year
- 3% of all new TB cases in India are MDR
- Over 6 lakh Indians are unaware that they suffer from TB
- TB kills 4,400 people every day globally
- 2 billion people world wide are infected with bacteria that causes TB
- 1 person is infected with TB every second around the world
- India and China account for an estimate 28% of all undetected new cases. Success rate of treatment of new TB cases stand at 87%,that of re treatment is 70%
- Latvia has consistently ranked among the countries with the highest rates of MDR-TB in the world. In the first Global Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Survey (1996), 14.4%, or 1 out of 7, of all newly diagnosed sputum smear-positive tuberculosis cases in Latvia were diagnosed as MDR-TB.
- Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is caused by bacteria that are resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, the anti-TB drugs most commonly used.
- An estimated 440,000 people had multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in 2008 and a third of them died as the new variant of the TB mycobacterium continues to spread, the World Health Organisation said Thursday.
- A potentially more serious problem is extensively drug-resistant TB or XDR-TB, in which the bacteria are resistant not only to isoniazid and rifampicin, but also to a fluoroquinolone and any of the second-line injectable drugs, such as amikacin, kanamycin and capreomycin.
- XDR-TB was first reported in 2006, 58 countries have reported at least one
The symptoms of tuberculosis depend on where in the body the TB bacteria are growing. Tuberculosis bacteria often grow in the lungs, causing pulmonary tuberculosis. Pulmonary tuberculosis may cause a bad cough that lasts longer than two weeks, pain in the chest and coughing up of blood or sputum. Other symptoms of TB disease include weakness or fatigue, weight loss, lack of appetite, chills, fever and night sweats.Inactive tuberculosis has no symptoms.
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