WB provides $100m to take on TB in India
World Bank team accompanied by World Health Organisation specialists visits Shatabdi Hospital in Govandi and some tuberculosis hot-spots.
The World Bank and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have jointly extended an aid of $100 million to India to help in the fight against the spread of TB.
Members of a World Bank team visiting Mumbai on Thursday said a big share of the aid is likely to go to Maharashtra because of the large number of XDR-TB (extremely drug resistant) and MDR-TB (multi-drug resistant) cases reported here. The state government has already received Rs 70 crore from the new fund.
Mumbai, home to the Sewri TB Hospital, one of the biggest in the country, has seen a steady rise in the number of TB cases, especially the MDR and XDR strains. According to the last data released by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, 2,310 cases - 38 per cent of the ailing population - are multi-drug resistant. The city also has 122 XDR-TB cases.
The World Bank team, accompanied by senior World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, visited the Govandi-Shatabdi hospital and some of the city’s TB hot-spots, where multiple members of several families have contracted TB.
Mumbai Mirror in a series of stories has focused not only on the spread of TB, but also the side-effects of medicines prescribed for its control. In the past three years, a dozen patients have killed themselves at the Sewri hospital.
Dr Satish Pawar, director, Directorate of Health Services, said the World Bank team was happy with the initiatives taken by the municipal corporation and the health department in Mumbai to control TB.
The World Bank aid will be used to improve quality of diagnosis and to evolve strategies to expand public sector TB services, such as scaling-up capacity for drug resistance testing to all 29 states and 7 Union territories in the country, as well as engage with private health care providers in order to reach cases diagnosed and treated in the private sector.
The WB team is scheduled to visit Thane on Friday. The team will also visit Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Dr R S Gupta, Director, Central TB Division, said that Union government has increased the budgetary allocation for TB from Rs 200 crore to Rs 800 crore.
He said that treatment of primary TB costs less than Rs 2,000 a year, while the same for an XDR patient goes up to Rs 5 lakh.
The World Bank and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have jointly extended an aid of $100 million to India to help in the fight against the spread of TB.
Members of a World Bank team visiting Mumbai on Thursday said a big share of the aid is likely to go to Maharashtra because of the large number of XDR-TB (extremely drug resistant) and MDR-TB (multi-drug resistant) cases reported here. The state government has already received Rs 70 crore from the new fund.
India sees an estimated 22 lakh new cases of TB and 2,70,000 deaths annually. Also, it is estimated that 64,000 new MDR-TB cases emerge annually in the country.
Mumbai, home to the Sewri TB Hospital, one of the biggest in the country, has seen a steady rise in the number of TB cases, especially the MDR and XDR strains. According to the last data released by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, 2,310 cases - 38 per cent of the ailing population - are multi-drug resistant. The city also has 122 XDR-TB cases.
The World Bank team, accompanied by senior World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, visited the Govandi-Shatabdi hospital and some of the city’s TB hot-spots, where multiple members of several families have contracted TB.
Mumbai Mirror in a series of stories has focused not only on the spread of TB, but also the side-effects of medicines prescribed for its control. In the past three years, a dozen patients have killed themselves at the Sewri hospital.
Dr Satish Pawar, director, Directorate of Health Services, said the World Bank team was happy with the initiatives taken by the municipal corporation and the health department in Mumbai to control TB.
The World Bank aid will be used to improve quality of diagnosis and to evolve strategies to expand public sector TB services, such as scaling-up capacity for drug resistance testing to all 29 states and 7 Union territories in the country, as well as engage with private health care providers in order to reach cases diagnosed and treated in the private sector.
The WB team is scheduled to visit Thane on Friday. The team will also visit Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Dr R S Gupta, Director, Central TB Division, said that Union government has increased the budgetary allocation for TB from Rs 200 crore to Rs 800 crore.
He said that treatment of primary TB costs less than Rs 2,000 a year, while the same for an XDR patient goes up to Rs 5 lakh.
