Shortened daily regimen for tuberculosis treatment which enables better drug compliance and gives the patients better chance at completing treatment is the aim of a study that the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT), Chennai, is all set to undertake.
NIRT’s multi-centric study — to be carried out in Nagpur, Lucknow, Vellor and Delhi — will evaluate the efficacy of a four-month daily regimen for TB treatment using Moxifloxacin, a drug used to prevent the disease as compared with the existing six-month course.
Under the National TB Elimination Program (NTEP), the anti-TB drugs are offered as fixed-dose combinations (FDC) and a pilot study for this has been completed.
Currently recruitment is ongoing for this study and Padmapriyadarshini C., director, NIRT, said that patients who will participate in the study will receive a four-month regimen and then they will be followed-up for any relapse for 24 months after the complete treatment. The aim is to offer safe and full treatment, Dr. Padmapriyadarshini said.
According to the Union Health Ministry, 2021 witnessed a 19% increase in TB patients’ notification compared with the previous year. The total number of incident TB patients (new and relapse) notified during 2021 was 19,33,381, while it was 16,28,161 in 2020.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry will also be launching a new initiative — “Adopt people with TB” — this year.
“The programme is based on Indian values of collectivism which will call upon corporates, industries, organisations, political parties and individuals to come forward and adopt TB infected people and family and provide them with nutritional and social support,’’ Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced recently.
Emphasising the need to strengthen TB prevention activities, the Minister said that later this year, India will introduce a newly approved, made-in-India TB infection skin test called ‘c-TB’.
“This cost-effective tool will be of immense benefit to other high burden countries as well,’’ he said.
