International experts to review TB control project

International experts to review TB control project
SANCHITA SHARMA

NEW DELHI, FEB 9: A group of international tuberculosis experts will be reviewing the World Bank-aided Rs 600-crore tuberculosis control project all of this week.

The project, which began at the fag end of 1998, is a part of the government's Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) that began eight years ago.

This is the first time the national tuberculosis control programme is being reviewed after the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short Course) strategy was introduced in the country on October 2, 1993. Today, India's Directly Observed Treatment Short Course programme is the second largest in the world and covers 135 million people. While the government was quick to declare the programme an astounding success they have been claiming the complete cure rate is a high 80 per cent the findings of independent health experts are sorely needed to present a dispassionate picture. The last national review took place in 1992.

``Government data shows that as many as 2,500 deaths are being preventedevery month and thousands of infections are being prevented,'' said a health ministry official.

The review, the Health Ministry maintains, is routine one and is being conducted to validate the data already available with the government. ``We wanted to discuss course correction independently before the programme is expanded to cover the rest of the country,'' he said.

After reviewing the programme in the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal and Assam, the experts will present their findings to the ministry in the middle of next week. There are over 14 million cases of TB in India, of which 3.5 million are highly infectious sputum positive. India accounts for 25 per cent of the global burden of disease, that is, one in four person infected with tuberculosis lives in India The earlier National TB Programme was a complete disaster even after being in place for four decades because most patients discontinued treatment after the obvious symptoms went away.

This led to drugresistant strains and persistent infections, and the Directly Observed Treatment Short Course strategy was introduced to counter that. The strategy involves giving the patient his medication under supervision at a Directly Observed Treatment Short Coursecentre for the complete course of treatment.

Global efforts to control this opportunistic infection have increased because on an average, one infected person can infect 10-15 others in one year alone. More than 60 per cent of people with AIDS die of tuberculosis.