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final fight pays off, XXDR-TB & HIV patient cured
Once an active case of extremely drug resistant (XXDR-TB) strain of tuberculosis or totally drug resistant (TDR) TB, 40-year-old Rashid Khan (name changed), has now been completely cured of his disease.
Updated : Mar 24, 2015, 06:40 AM IST
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Once an active case of extremely drug resistant (XXDR-TB) strain of tuberculosis or totally drug resistant (TDR) TB, 40-year-old Rashid Khan (name changed), has now been completely cured of his disease.
Rashid was one of the first cases of XXDR-TB and also the only patient with an HIV co-infection reported by Dr Zarir Udwadia, a chest physician at PD Hinduja Hospital in Mahim.
Rashid, who stayed in a 100 square-foot shanty in Dharavi, now returned to his village in north India. From a frail patient who could barely get out of his cot and was frequently in need of oxygen support, Rashid went walking out of Dr Udwadia's clinic a few days back.
"I was in the jaws of death two years ago. Almost no drug regimen for TB was effective enough to cure my ailment," Rashid told dna.
A year back, Dr Udwadia had written to NGO Doctors without Borders or Medicines sans Frontiers (MSF) saying, "Let us not give up on him without a final fight."
"The final fight has paid off," Rashid said. Rashid was put on Bedaquiline, for close to six months, last year.
"Despite having total drug resistance and HIV infection, Khan got cured a few days ago. A major surgery was conducted to remove one lung. At one stage he was receiving a cocktail of 18–20 drugs between his HIV and TB regimes. But Bedaquiline made a huge difference in his treatment. He is off medicine now. He has tested negative for TB bacilli in his sputum," said Dr Udwadia.
Currently, close to 40 XXDR-TB patients, for whom no TB medication is proving to be effective, are seeking salvage treatment at Hinduja Hospital. Of the 40, the hospital has managed to put 10 to 15 patients on Bedaquiline. The drug is not available in India and has to be procured from Europe on special request to the manufacturer Janssen.
"As the drug is not available in India, we have to literally go with a begging bowl in our hand to appeal to them to sanction and supply. If freely supplied, I am confident it can increase survival rate for drug resistant patients."
