TB patients to get free drug from April in Odisha

Cuttack: As part of announcement made by the Centre on occasion of World Tuberculosis Day observed on March 24, free drug will be provided to the patients suffering from the disease in the states including Odisha.

Odisha will be the seventh state in the country to implement the programme to eliminate TB by providing the drug ‘bedaquiline’ to the patients.

The programme will be launched from April first week in three government-run medical colleges, informed the SCB Medical College & Hospital.

With the initiative, the persons living with TB will be benefitted to have free Bedaquiline, which costs around Rs 8,000 per tablet.

Adequate amount of drug is available in nodal centres of three medical colleges. In view of possible misuse of the costly drug, the patient will be provided the Bedaquiline at the nodal centres.

Under the programme, a TB patient needs to be admitted to the nodal centre for 15 days where he will be provided two doses of medicine. After he recovers from the infection, he will be discharged from the centre and will be sent to his respective district where the patient will have to take the drug thrice a week till five months from the district TB officer.

The TB death rate will decline if the drug will be made available to all the patients and the country will get a tremendous success in controlling the disease, said department of Pulmonary Medicine Professor at SCB Medical College & Hospital Dr Manoranjan Patnaik, who recently attended a special event in New Delhi.