treatment in pvt sector'New Delhi, Nov 17 (PTI) The anti-TB drugs, which arebeing given under the newly rolled out daily drug regimen,will be made available to pharmacies and practitioners forpatients who seek treatment in the private sector, the healthministry said today.
The drugs will be given free of cost depending upon theconvenience of patient and practitioner, the ministry said ina statement.
The ministry will take this forward with all majorhospitals, the Indian Medical Association (IMA), and otherprofessional medical associations to expand the access todaily fixed drug combinations (FDCs) to all TB patients.
The daily drug regimen was rolled out across India onOctober 31 as part of which patients will be given fixed drugcombinations, three or four drugs in a single pill, on a dailybasis instead of thrice a week (the intermittent drugregimen).
"Patients will be given fixed drug combinations, three orfour drugs in a single pill, as against seven tablets, whichwill reduce the pill burden. Besides, dosage will bedetermined according to the patient's body weight. Previously,it was same for all adults," a health ministry official said.
Also, children suffering from tuberculosis won't have totake the bitter tablets anymore as they will be replaced witheasily-dissolvable and flavoured drugs, he said.
Since 1997, under the Revised National TB ControlProgramme (RNTCP), patients were being administered drugsthrice a week.
According to the official, daily treatment regimen islikely to be more effective with lesser relapses. "This isexpected to reduce drug resistance with greater compliance."The World Health Organisation revised its TB managementguidelines in 2010, recommending that the daily drug regimenbe adopted under the RNTCP.
According to a health ministry data, the TB incidence wasestimated to be 217 per lakh population in 2015. It reduced to211 per lakh population in 2016.
Despite the reduction, India topped the list of sevencountries, accounting for 64 per cent of the 10.4 million newtuberculosis cases worldwide in 2016, according to a newglobal report released by the WHO yesterday.
Also, India along with China and Russia accounted foralmost half of the 490,000, multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB)cases reported in 2016.
According to the report, under-reporting and under-diagnosis of TB cases continues to be a challenge, especiallyin countries with large unregulated private sectors and weakhealth systems.
Of the estimated 10.4 million new cases globally, only6.3 million were detected and officially notified in 2016,leaving a gap of 4.1 million.
India, Indonesia and Nigeria accounted for almost half ofthis global gap, the report stated. PTI PLBABH.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.