Private labs report 31 XDR-TB cases

With more and more multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) cases getting added to the list, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and state officials are in a fix.

A state official associated with tuberculosis control in the state said that they have been notified of 31 XDR-TB cases by the private labs so far.

“As these laboratories are not accredited by Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, we are tracking the people and sending their sputum samples for confirmatory tests,” he said. Till now, only three laboratories — PD Hinduja hospital lab, Religare lab and Breach Candy hospital lab — have submitted their reports.

A month after debating on the rising numbers, the BMC had written to Metropolis laboratory, Religare laboratory, and laboratories at Hinduja, Holy Family, Holy Spirit, Lilavati, Breach Candy, Jaslok and Bombay hospitals to notify them about the drug resistant cases.

Dr AA Bandiwadekar, executive health officer, BMC, said, “Hinduja hospital has sent us a report of 131 drug resistant TB cases. We are in contact with 44 of these; for the rest, the process is on. From Religare, we have got 89 cases of which we have been able to contact only three so far. We received two cases from Breach Candy hospital. One has died; the other is in touch with us.”

Bandiwadekar said the drug sensitivity tests of these people and those in close contact with them are on in the laboratories at JJ and Hinduja hospitals. As the 31 XDR-TB cases are from the upper middle class, the TB officials are mulling over how to handle the treatment of these people. People from upper middle class families generally avoid visiting treatment centres or civic hospitals, and prefer consulting private doctors.

The state official said, “We plant to counsel these patients and drop the medicines at their doorstep if are fine with it. We will also include private doctors in our programme to help us deal with such people.”

“In 2011, we had got 498 samples for the drug susceptibility tests. A third of these turned out to be positive for MDR-TB and another 10% for XDR-TB,” said Dr Kshama Shetya of Metropolis, underlining the average incidence of MDR-TB and XDR-TB in a single laboratory.