MULTI DRUG RESISTANT
TUBERCULOSIS
The Problem
One thing that has forever been inculcated in medicos in their study years and since then, is INDIA= TUBERCULOSIS. Sounds like a horrible goof up of grammar, but what the statement implies is, that if the world was to to have a birthday party, Indians would always Bring in a present of tuberculosis, such is the wrath of this disease in the nation. As a matter of fact, of the total number of tuberculosis diagnosed in the world, one third of them belong to India. This justifies the widely known notion, INDIA= TB.
One thing that has forever been inculcated in medicos in their study years and since then, is INDIA= TUBERCULOSIS. Sounds like a horrible goof up of grammar, but what the statement implies is, that if the world was to to have a birthday party, Indians would always Bring in a present of tuberculosis, such is the wrath of this disease in the nation. As a matter of fact, of the total number of tuberculosis diagnosed in the world, one third of them belong to India. This justifies the widely known notion, INDIA= TB.
To add to our worries is the emergence of a newer disaster, called
MULTI DRUG RESISTANT TB ( MDR TB). Here's everything you need to know about it.
How It Occurs?
How It Occurs?
The
conventional treatment of tuberculosis is known as the anti tubercular
treatment (anti koch’s treatment). With this, tuberculosis spread has been
compromised to a great extent, but still there remains some cases which have
not been responsive. There are known as the latest cases. The drugs kill the
bacterial cell wall and thus provide resistant against them. Concomitant use of
the same class of drugs resulted in development of resistance within the
bacteria. The bacteria thus manages to evade the bacteriolytic property of the
anti tubercular drugs and thus has been defined as drug resistant. Since the
treatment was given in the form of at least 3-4 drugs, the resistance developed
was coined as multi drug resistant resistance thus causing- MDR TB.
The Solution?
The terror of this condition can be
explained in the absence of alternative measures of treatment for tuberculosis.
Meaning, if a person is infected with MDR TB, there's no option left for
treatment because all the drugs that should be curing him have already been
proven infective. This comes off as a bad news given the fact that a patient,
developing definite infectivity from TB presents with highly disastrous
symptoms with excruciating pain, such that, dying seems easier than living with
this. Failure of the anti tuberculin drugs therefore, is one of the medical
disasters ever noted down. There's another class of anti- tb drugs developed
but they have minimal efficacy and a large number of side effects. Given the
infectivity of the condition and the nation's susceptible nature to
tuberculosis, this condition has been declared as a national emergency today.
Many interventions are being carried out to find alternative treatment regimes but not many
have shown effective results. The only way for curing this disaster as of now,
is prevention. Healthy practices, early diagnosis, routine checkups, are necessary
to prevent this dreaded disaster from growing up on us.
