TB: DOTS Plus programme soon in 11 districts

BHUBANESWAR: To take the fight against multi drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) a notch ahead, the State Government today announced that the DOTS Plus programme would be extended to 11 more districts soon.

The directly observed therapy shortcourse (DOTS) Plus programme is currently provided in three districts of Cuttack, Khurda, Ganjam and the Capital city of Bhubaneswar through the DOTS plus site at the SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack.

The new district to be included are Puri, Nayagarh, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Mayurbhanj and Balasore within this month and Dhenkanal, Angul, Bhadrak, Keonjhar and Jajpur by the end of August. They would be covered by the DOTS Plus site at the SCB Medical College and Hospital.

Funds have been provided to the MKCG and VSS Medical College and Hospitals at Berhampur and Burla respectively to upgrade their facilities and creation of DOTS Plus wards so that they can function as sites to extend services to the MDR TB patients. Once the wards are made operational, the programme would be extended to the districts of South and Western Orissa, Health Minister Prasanna Acharya said today.

The SCBMCH has been designated as the nodal centre for treatment of MDR TB patients since 2009 after establishment of the Accredited Intermediary Reference Laboratory (IRL) for diagnosis of drug resistant strains. An 18 bed MDR TB ward has been established as the DOTS Plus TB treatment requires hospitalisation. So far about 88 MDR TB patients have been diagnosed and 62 received treatment.

While the Government is providing free treatment and medicines to patients, the State would soon include Line Probe Assay (LPA) and liquid culture at the IRL Cuttack for tests of samples. The new techniques would vastly reduce the diagnosis time of MDR TB from the present two months to two days.

Drug resistant TB has emerged a major threat and challenge to the control and eradication measures not only in the State and country but across the world. With an estimated prevalence rate of 200 TB cases in a lakh population, the situation of drug resistance in the State can spell disaster as one MDR TB patient can infect 10 to 15 persons in a year. It is estimated that three percent of the new TB cases and around 15 percent of the existing ones may be affected by MDR TB strains. The major cause is noncompliance with the DOTS regimen and discontinuation as the patients begins to be free of symptoms.

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