Tackling TB

SHOWING an easy and affordable way forward for India’s fight against tuberculosis are the findings of a study by the ICMR and the TB institute of Chennai, conducted in Jharkhand (which has a high burden of TB and multi-dimensional poverty) from August 2019 to August 2022 and published in The Lancet. The project conclusively establishes that the mortality risk of TB patients is greatly reduced — by 60 per cent — with the intervention of dietary support, especially if it leads to weight gain within two months. Significantly, the study quantifies how under-nutrition, a known leading risk for TB, can be tackled: Giving monthly provisions of a 10-kg food basket of rice, pulses, milk powder, oil and multivitamins to the patients can reduce the incidence of all forms of TB by 40 per cent and of the infectious lung TB by 50 per cent among those in contact with the victims for six months. The family members need 5-kg rice and 1.5-kg pulses per head per month to stay safe from infection.

Thus, clinical care needs to be supplemented by nutritional support for better treatment outcomes, which, in turn, would be a booster shot for India’s ambitious plan of largely eliminating TB and TB mortality by 2025. An all-out approach is a must to meet this target, considering that India accounts for 27 per cent of TB incidence and 35 per cent of TB deaths globally, as per the WHO Report-2022.

The efforts need to be stepped up also in view of another worrisome development: the National TB Prevalence Survey 2019-21 has revealed that the tuberculosis burden in India is 1.6 times higher than previously estimated. Providing wholesome dietary rations to all underprivileged sections and, thus, reducing their susceptibility to TB would better serve to eradicate the disease as it is seen that 64 per cent of the symptomatic population did not seek healthcare services, preferring to ignore the symptoms or not recognising them as indicators of TB.