The new episode of Satyamev Jayate is on and it is on the spread of TB in India. TB or tuberculosis is a dreaded disease which is affecting several Indian lives but people are not fully aware of its ill-effects. This episode highlights how TB can spread and what it does to your body. Here's what happened in this episode.
Killer TB
A doctor shared his tale about his sister (also doing her MBBS) who passed away at the age of 24. She was admitted to different hospitals for her treatment of TB but every time she would recover and then fall ill again. Even after shifting to the best of hospitals she suffered a stroke which left her brain dead and after a few days she passed away.
Dr Zarir Udwadia from Hinduja Hospital says in normal circumstances, people usually recover from TB with the use of medications but if they have MDR TB or multi-drug resistance tuberculosis, then the treatment and medications are stronger and much expensive. They have to eat about 15,000 tablets, about 200 vaccines and have several side-effects. Worse than this is XDR or extremely drug resistant TB or TDR -- totally drug resistant TB. On these, none of the medications work. The result is that even people who have MDR are given drugs which do not work on them for as long as 14 months or longer.
He also adds that if a person who suffers from TB and is given the wrong medication, the TB can become MDR TB. It is worse than the original and is difficult to treat it. Therefore, it is important to take the full course of medication to avoid getting it worse.
Prathmesh's struggle with TB
Prathmesh, a bank manager found out that he is suffering from MDR TB. After finding out, his family broke down but he wanted to stay strong to recover at the earliest. The toughest part was the injections -- he took about 400 of them. Apart from this, he had severe headache, vomiting, weakness, weight loss. All this went on for eight months. After this, the doctor informed him that he had to undergo lung surgery which could also be fatal as a part of his lung had to be removed. The surgery went fine but after a few days, he came to know that his TB relapsed and he had to undergo another surgery. As of now, it has been four years since his treatment is going on.
One of his most emotional moments was when his daughter was born but he could not even get a glimpse of her because of his condition. He spent about Rs 25,000 lakhs on his treatment as of now.
Problem with government's TB treatment program
RNTCP - a free service to detect TB and treat it. It has benefited over 1 crore people as of now. But is it effective on the advanced levels of TB?
A doctor highlights the fact that these days, TB spreads very quickly and it is difficult to diagnose what kind of tuberculosis it is. Here are a few problems in government's program of treatment of TB at the grass root level:
How to control TB
Dr Anurag Bharghav says that to fight TB, we first need to look at facts which lead to it. One of them is malnutrition which affects 36% of Indian women. Even in European nations, TB was a big scare but with the right diet and nutrition their TB cases came down.
In New York too TB cases rose in the '90s. To tackle this, the government increased the funds for treatment of TB and volunteers went from street to street to provide medication to the citizens. A nurse called Rebecca also spoke about her journey during this period in NY. She had to provide medication to drug dealers, criminals, etc. during this time but her aim was to make sure they got it on time without caring about their profession.
In India too such a change is needed. There has to be proper supervision. To do so, a software called E-Compliance has been created by Operation ASHA. Everything is computerised so that none of the patients miss their dosage. They take their fingerprint and monitor their progress with the help of just one click.
16-year-old's TB struggle
Deepti was detected with TB when she was in 10th grade and was given six months to live. And she had 1% chance of surviving even with the operation. But she survived it and today she lives with just one lung. But she is happily married and wants to inspire other TB patients that there is hope and don't give up.
Salman Khan's story
Superstar Salman was also on the show and shared with the audience how his grandmother was also suffering from TB. His father was only 7 years old. She used to go to Nanital for her treatment and one day after coming back from the treatment, she was unable to recognise her own son i.e. Salman's father. Salman also helps several TB patients by providing them financial help. He even felicitated several volunteers who are working towards eradicating TB from India.
Image source: Getty Images
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