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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Dole to check TB treatment dropouts -Ananya Sengupta

-The Telegraph


New Delhi: The Union government is for the first time mulling a policy to use cash and food incentives to encourage patients with tuberculosis to complete treatment and reduce the risk of spread of drug-resistant TB.

The ministry of health and family welfare, concerned at the large number of patients who discontinue free treatment provided by the government, is preparing a proposal to provide free ration and compensation for missed work days to people affected with TB.

The scheme would be valid for the period for which the patient is undergoing treatment, which generally lasts from six months to a year, to ensure that they do not drop out while being treated.

A patient seeking free government-funded TB therapy is expected to visit a designated medical centre three times a week to get a doctor to administer TB drugs. While the drugs are free, TB control programme specialists say, about 12 per cent of patients discontinue treatment within weeks after their symptoms go away.

Stopping treatment midway increases the risk that such patients will develop drug-resistant TB and, over time, even spread it to others in the community.

The ministry has now devised a plan by which a patient would not only get free ration but would also be compensated for the loss in wages during visits to the centre.

"Treatment of TB needs more than just medicines. The patient needs healthy and nutritious food and also proper rest. Most TB patients go for treatment, but after a few weeks they discontinue as they seem to be getting better. We realised that compensating them monetarily is the only way to guarantee full treatment," said a senior ministry official.

"We've been advocating such a move for a long time," said Jayant Banavaliker, a TB specialist and vice-chairman of the TB Association of India. "Nutrition is a very important component of TB treatment and such a move could ensure that patients receive some levels of appropriate nutrition."