TB drugs in short supply: patients
Somita Pal
MUMBAI : To ensure more drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) patients get hold of life-saving antibiotics – bedaquiline and delamanid, tuberculosis survivors and activists have written to the union health ministry requesting increased access to both the drugs to bring down the disease burden and deaths in the community.
Ganesh Acharya TB Survivor/tb-hiv Activist, said, “Presently, these two drugs are available only under the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) and patients are chosen as per their medical parameters before being enrolled for the drug.”
He said in recent years, bedaquiline had become a cornerstone of treatment regimens for DR-TB– a tough-to-treat form of the disease that affects an estimated 500,000 people every year worldwide.
“Prior to the introduction of this transformational drug, DR-TB was treated using toxic regimens lasting up to two years, with rates of treatment success below 50%. With bedaquiline given in combination with other new and repurposed TB medicines, DR-TB can now be treated in as little as six months, with rates of treatment success ranging from 70–90% depending on the regimen. Bedaquiline and delamanid are therefore essential to the roll-out of injection-free regimens under the NTEP for adults and children. Delamanid particularly is of interest for treating children affected by DR-TB,” he explained.
Close to 4273 multi-drug resistant TB patients have benefitted in Mumbai since its launch in 2018. New TB cases detected in Mumbai in 2020 stood at 43,464 out of which 4,367 were multi-dr-tb and 200 were extensively DR-TB. In 2021, the city reported 58840 new cases of TB out of which 5909 were multi-dr-tb and 126 were extensively DR-TB. Before the pandemic, in 2019, the city saw 60,597 new cases of TB out of which 5,673 were multi-dr-tb and 794 were extensively DR TB.
“There have been repeated incidents of short supply, stock outs in various parts of the country. Many states still do not have the supply of these two antibiotics. In a city like Mumbai, patients who are severely sick, severely resistant, are chosen for the bedaquiline,” explained Eldred Tellis, Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust, Mumbai.