India: Rollout of daily drug regimen for TB treatment delayed
Delays in drug procurement at the Centre seems to have affected the rollout of the daily drug regimen for the treatment of tuberculosis under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) in Kerala as well as in the four other States where the programme was to have been piloted by March this year.
The daily drug regimen was to have been piloted in 104 districts across five States, including all 14 districts in Kerala.
Even when the Central TB Division was contemplating this major shift in policy from the intermittent drug regimen (wherein TB patients were being administered drugs thrice a week) to the daily drug regimen, drug procurement logistics was expected to be a major hurdle, given the huge volume of patients who would have to be catered to.
Since 1997, the RNTCP has been following an intermittent drug regimen of three drug-days a week, whereas all private sector physicians preferred to put their patients on a daily drug regimen of tailor-made drug combinations and dosages.
This lack of universality in the manner in which TB was being treated across the country had given rise to inadequate treatment and drug resistance issues.
“The policy decision to shift RNTCP to daily drug regimen still stands but as anticipated, some drug logistics issues have cropped up and efforts are on to resolve these. Instead of several individual drugs, patients will be put on fixed drug combinations, i.e., three or more drugs as a single dose, to reduce the pill burden and to simplify the treatment for the patient. The dosages are in four specific weight bands. Since only one drug firm responded to the first tender, we have had to re-tender the lot but the procurement is expected to be completed in six months,” a senior official said.
Source: The Hindu
