India is facing an acute shortage of tuberculosis drugs, including medicines used for treating drug-resistant TB such as Linezolid, Clofazimine, and Cycloserine.
Shortage of medicines used for treating drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB began last year and has been continuing across India for about a year now. It started with shortage of Rifampicin used for treating drug-sensitive TB and now includes drug-resistant TB drugs too.
“The Union government has not supplied adequate doses of Rifampicin and some drugs used for treating people with Multidrug-resistant TB [MDR-TB],” said Asha Frederick, Tamil Nadu State TB Officer. “The States have been asked to procure the drugs themselves but no additional funding has been provided.”
