Ahead of World Tuberculosis Day, health experts rued the government's delay in implementing the daily fixed-dose treatment of tuberculosis despite making policy changes in this regard, and urged it to swiftly implement revised TB treatment regimes.
Although experts welcomed reports that the Central TB Division will soon switch from intermittent (three times in a week) to daily treatment for drug sensitive TB as part of 'Directly Observed Treatment (DOTS)', they said that more concrete steps needed to be taken towards implementing the recommended policy changes.
"India has taken the first steps towards adopting daily FDC regimen for drug-sensitive TB treatment or DOTS. The Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) recently released new policy, which recommends implementation of a daily DOTS regimen using FDCs.
"In addition, the government is planning to conduct a pilot project of the daily regimen in 100 districts and is contemplating bringing in 4-FDC formulations. While these are positive signs, more concrete steps need to be taken towards implementing the recommended policy changes," experts said in a joint statement.
It said that while currently India uses single drug formulations for each of the drugs that are part of the recommended drug sensitive TB (DS-TB) treatment regime, it was likely that the TB programme will also introduce daily fixed-dose combinations (FDCs) as an additional step to ensuring proper treatment.
The experts include officials of Asia Pacific Network, International Treatment Preparedness Coalition - South Asia, Delhi Network of Positive People, Community Network for Empowerment (Manipur), Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust and MSF Access Campaign.
Experts said that while the last round of tenders for TB drugs did not include FDC formulations, the government should ensure that TB drug tenders in 2015 include FDCs.
