The World Health Organisation launched a new drug facility to commemorate the World Tuberculosis Day, which will improve access to life saving drugs used in TB treatment in the developing countries over the next five years.
Tuberculosis is currently the world's most lethal curable disease. The maximum number of cases reported are from Asia and Africa, which account for nearly 80% of the world's reported cases of TB. According to WHO figures, nearly 8.5 million new cases are reported worldwide every year, and more than 2 million people die of the disease. In India alone, about 2 million cases occur every year. One person dies every minute, while 2 others are diagnosed positive for the disease.
WHO has launched a Global TB Drug Facility, which will be financed by donations and which will act as an agency for the procurement of effective TB drugs by the developing nations who enter into an agreement with it. The treatment programme called DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short course) is a part of the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme. It aims at drug therapy and patient surveillance to treat tuberculosis. The patient will be under the guidance of a health worker who will monitor the intake of medication by the patient. This monitoring will extend up to 6 months for a patient to get cured of TB.
The most tragic thing about the scenario is that though treatment for TB has been around for over 50 years now, most people still die due to non-availability of drugs. Tuberculosis has become a serious condition since the causative bacterium (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) has become resistant to the commonly prescribed drugs. The situation is made worse by the increase in the spread of HIV. This infection reduces the immunity of a person and makes him more susceptible to respiratory infections like TB.
The Delhi government has been the first to implement DOTS in India, besides opening six new chest and TB clinics at various hospitals in the city. The government plans to open 60 more DOTS centres by the next year.
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