For second time in seven months, India is running short of TB drugs, putting patients at risk

In the last 15 days, Anisha Pando has not taken her tuberculosis medicines.

The 12-year-old from Mudgaon village in Sarguja, a remote district in Chhattisgarh, was diagnosed with tuberculosis in August last year.

Her village is 30 km from the nearest health centre run by the non-governmental organisation Sangwari, which has tied up with the government to provide free tuberculosis medicines.

But like several health centres across the country, it is running out of medicines. “Since the stock is limited, her father has to travel frequently to collect the medicines,” the centre’s nurse Dhanvantiri Porpe said. “He is a farmer. He cannot make so many trips. So she stopped her medication,” Porpe said.
For the second time in seven months, a drug stockout is hampering tuberculosis treatment across India with medication in short supply in several states. In August last year, too, a shortage of drugs used to treat patients infected by resistant strains of bacteria had left patients and doctors anxious.

This time, those affected are drug-sensitive patients like Pando, who respond well to the first line of tuberculosis drugs.

‘Supplies delayed’

On March 18, the Central TB division wrote to all states, asking them to locally procure drug-sensitive medicines for the next three months.

Usually, the Central Medical Services Society,...

Read more