World Tuberculosis (TB) Day - 24 March 2014

MAYUR VIHAR, India - March 24, 2014 - PRLog -- Read Ful Article: www.janpratinidhi.com/blog/world-tuberculosis-day/

According to a report, more than 1.7 million people each year die due to this disease worldwide. Now, on this World Tuberculosis Day, you must be thinking where India stands in battling this life threatening disease? According to the WHO 2011 statics, India is the home of more than 2.2 million TB patients out of 8.7 million patients globally.

It’s an unpleasant fact that Tuberculosis is currently one of the biggest health issues in the country. Well after getting the answer of this question, you might get disappointed and say what the hell is our government and health agencies are doing? But, it is also an unpleasant fact that government is not responsible for everything. It also depends upon us to be aware of this devastating disease and take the necessary precautions to deal with it.

A national project to control TB was launched by the government in the year 1962 with an aim to control the disease with BCG vaccination. Free treatment was included with public private partnership. In the year 2012, after 50 years since Indian government had first launched the national project to control TB, WHO (World Health organization) named India as the worst performer among all the developing countries having 26% of total TB patients in world.

In the recent years tuberculosis is very much in headlines but only for the wrong reasons. India is among the three countries with TDR-TB along with Italy and Iran. It is the most advance form of TB which is caused by the bacteria that are resistant to wider range of antibiotics that are used to treat TB. Shortage of drugs along with MDR-TB (Multi drug resistant tuberculosis), XDR TB (Extensive drug resistant tuberculosis) and TDR-TB (total drug resistant tuberculosis) makes the treatment of TB both expensive and deadly.  In India private practitioners are authorized to treat the patients with TB but in the absence of quality check mechanism they bypass the recommended treatments that results into TDR, MDR and XDR.