Fighting Tuberculosis

Every year on March 24, observed as World Tuberculosis Day, results of the stocktaking are not very encouraging. India, which India takes stock of the progress of the Directly Observed is among the 22 high burden countries, has 3.8 million tuberculosis Treatment Scheme (DOTS), launched as the Revised (TB) patients. According to the directorate general of health National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) in 1997. The services, two deaths occur every three minutes from the disease.

The DOTS is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) effort to fight the disease across the world. According to the WHO’s 2008 report, Global Tuberculosis Control, its treatment programmes have failed to reduce the incidence and transmission of TB. More alarmingly, the report says that progress in case detection “slowed globally in 2006 and began to stall in China and India”. Both these countries lead in the number of cases recorded. The report found that worldwide there were 9.2 million new cases of TB in 2006, including 0.7 million cases among people living with HIV. Further, there were 1.7 million deaths in 2006, including 0.2 million deaths of HIV positive persons. The basic objective of DOTS is to detect at least 70 per cent of the newly contracted cases and cure at least 85 per cent among them, with treatment that involves the intake of four drugs for a minimum of six months.