Ophthalmologists across the country are recording more and more cases of ocular tuberculosis, particularly patients with tubercular uveitis, a form of inflammation of the middle layer (uvea) of the eye caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis or by the interaction between the body's immune system and mycobacteria.

PUNE: Maharashtra recorded 779 cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the world's most untreatable form of TB, in 2015 - the highest figure recorded in last five years.

PUNE, Sep 25, 2015: The new medicine to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis will be rolled out in four Indian cities and will be made available for free.

PUNE: Within two months, every newly diagnosed tuberculosis (TB) patient in Maharashtra will be first put through the drug susceptibility test to check for drug-resistant TB, and also to determine which drugs will work well on the patient.

PUNE: The daily drug treatment for tuberculosis (TB) will be rolled out initially in five states, including Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim, between January and February next year. The new regimen will replace the existing three times a week treatment and will be implemented across the country in a phased manner thereafter.

PUNE: It is not just the patients who default on treatment, but also private doctors who are to blame for the rise in drug-resistant cases of tuberculosis.

PUNE: The state has recorded 155 cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in the last three years. Of the 155 cases, 115 alone were recorded last year. Barring nine cases, most of the patients diagnosed with XDR-TB are from Mumbai (123), Navi Mumbai (25) and Pune district (8).

PUNE: A seven-month-old girl from Ahmednagar has become the sixth infant aged below one year to be diagnosed with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) at the Sassoon hospital here this year. The youngest baby to contract the infection was only two months old.

Private practitioners treating tuberculosis patients will now have to report each case to the state health department. The aim is to improve private doctors' participation as well as to ensure appropriate and effective treatment of the disease.