CHENNAI, 14 February 2018: At least three out of five people, particularly in rural areas, choose to visit private healthcare facilities for tuberculosis treatment before they enrol for free treatment at state-run hospitals including primary health care centres, a study by a group of scientists has found. This has led to a delay in starting treatment - a critical factor for preventing complications and spread of TB in the community, the authors said. It also increased out-of-pocket expenses for the patients by nearly 17 times, said the descriptive study, ‘Diagnostic pathways and direct medical costs incurred by new adult pulmonary TB patients prior to anti-TB treatment – Tamil Nadu, India,’ published on Wednesday in an open access medical journal PlosOne.

CHENNAI: Living with someone who is infected with tuberculosis can push up the risk of infection by more than two times, a study by National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis has found.

CHENNAI: The combination of diabetes and tuberculosis doesn't just complicate treatment; the double disease could be as dangerous as having HIV/AIDS with TB. A new study has confirmed that diabetes can make the TB bacteria harder to treat, just as HIV/AIDS does.

CHENNAI: The most feared form of drug-resistant tuberculosis has arrived in Chennai. Doctors at the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai report that they have since July treated a few TB patients who did not respond to any of the existing antibiotics for the disease. Some of the patients have died.