Indian apex court orders daily treatment for TB

Author: app/afp

NEW DELHI: Millions of tuberculosis (TB) patients in India will receive daily treatment after the Supreme Court on Monday ordered the government to change the current dosing practice amid activist claims that it was endangering lives.

Around 2.5 million new cases of TB were reported in India in 2015, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Around 200,000 people Indian die every year from TB, according to various estimates.

From October, those with TB will get daily tablets for free, instead of three times a week. Raman Kakkar, an activist who submitted a petition in the country’s top court, said that the government was obsessed with the intermittent treatment even though the WHO approved daily drugs.

“The government’s reluctance to shift to new dosage was causing a relapse of the disease in many patients and was even responsible for the development of drug-resistant infections,” Kakkar said. The government said it would switch to the new dosage after nine months, when the existing stock of medicines had finished.

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