-The Times of India MUMBAI: "It is a miracle I'm alive," said 31-year-old Borivli resident Deepti Chavan, who was given six months to live in 2004. Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) had literally eaten away her left lung and doctors were skeptical she would live for long. Drug-resistant TB is emerging as one of the biggest health challenges-more and more are getting infected (see box) even as the number of effective medicines is shrinking....

-The Hindu     Until activists and patients question approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment, TB will continue to plague us Tuberculosis in India is big: 2.3 million cases, 30,000 deaths, a million missing patients. These terrifying numbers remind us of a continuing crisis - when every TB death is preventable. Behind these numbers are innumerable unheard stories of human suffering - of misdiagnosis, inappropriate treatment and lack of access to care resulting in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's health ministry will tomorrow release the country's first-ever rulebook on tuberculosis that medical experts hope will help curb wrong treatment in the private sector and improve results in public-sector clinics. The Standards for TB Care in India (STCI) prescribe ways to diagnose and treat the disease, a bacterial infection that requires multiple Drugs to be administered for at least six months - and up to two years...

-The Hindustan Times Rubina appears much older than the 40 years she admits to. She does not look you in the eye; she is hardly audible, and often trembles. Her hut, on the outskirts of Guhana village in Haryana's Mewat district, is surrounded by garbage heaps and excreta. There is no water or electricity and the hut is filled with acrid smoke from the cooking fire. "This is how our stories...

-Down to Earth Giving patents to foreign-made medicines will add to patients' woes, they urge Health activists staged a protest in front of the office of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday, demanding that the government should ensure that oral Drugs to treat Hepatitis C are made available to patients. The demonstrators were later assured by the ministry officials that they would look into the matter...