India to treat all MDR-TB cases by 2010, WHO official says

India is expanding tuberculosis diagnostic and prevention activities and plans to treat all cases of multi-drug resistant TB nationwide by 2010, the Seoul Times reports.

About 2.8% of new TB cases in Southeast Asia are MDR-TB, and 18.8% of cases among people who have received TB treatment for at least one month are MDR-TB, Jai Narain, director of the communicable diseases department at the World Health Organization's Southeast Asian Regional Office, said.

Although the number of MDR-TB cases is not increasing sharply in India or throughout the region, the number of MDR-TB cases is "indeed large," Narain said. He added that many countries in Southeast Asia have achieved TB treatment success rates of more than 85% but that the number of drug-resistant TB cases is increasing, particularly among HIV-positive people.

According to Narain, India has adopted new TB policies and is "rapidly building laboratory capacity through a network of 24 reference laboratories qualified to undertake culture and drug-susceptibility testing to offer testing to all those who may have drug-resistant forms of TB." India also has implemented an "expansion plan to treat MDR-TB cases countrywide by the end of 2010," Narain said, adding that the plan also aims to determine how and where MDR-TB is spreading and prevent the spread of MDR-TB.

Public health officials view India's efforts to expand TB control as an "opportunity to strengthen our efforts to focus on prevention of MDR-TB so that we do not have to make the larger investments in treating additional cases of MDR-TB," Narain said. He added that the spread of MDR-TB can be prevented by "addressing all causes of adverse TB treatment outcomes, enhancing involvement of private sector and unlinked public health facilities, and promoting wider acceptance and application of the International Standards of TB Care" (Dwivedi, Seoul Times, 9/22).