-The Times of India MUMBAI: The treatment of lakhs of tuberculosis (TB) patients, especially children, across the country has been jeopardized over the past few weeks as India battles a severe shortage of key TB drugs. The stock-outs are more to do with two categories: paediatric and drug-resistant TB or DR-TB, industry experts say. Medical experts say that unless the government intervenes immediately, such acute shortage of drugs could prove disastrous for...

-The Hindu The epidemic is running amok. And the government is finally waking up to the reality. Tuberculosis was declared a global health emergency in 1993, but it has been growing unchecked. Today, TB is causing millions of deaths every year globally. Like any infectious disease, TB is prevalent even in developed countries. But it is a more serious problem in the developing and populous countries. India and China together account for nearly...

Tuberculosis re-emerges as a major threat as new drug-resistant strains develop because of mismanagement of the disease. At the beginning of the year, doctors at Mumbai’s P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre reported that they had 12 patients infected with TDR-TB, or totally drug-resistant tuberculosis, a condition in which the TB bacilli is resistant to all first- and second-line drugs used in the conventional treatment of the disease. Panic...

Discovery of a deadly form of TB in a Mumbai hospital  underscores mismanagement In December last, when doctors at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai raised the alarm over a deadly form of tuberculosis, the Union health ministry was quick to refute the claim. In its press release on January 17, the ministry said the term “totally drug resistant TB” is “misleading”; it is neither recognised by the national programme for TB control...

Health ministry deputes team to Mumbai; says neither WHO nor tuberculosis control programme recognise TDR-TB The Union ministry of health has denied the presence of totally drug resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB) reported in Mumbai. Researchers at the Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai documented the presence of this strain of TB in India for the first time in the December 21, 2011 edition of the journal, Clinical Infectious Diseases. Patients suffering from it are...