Page 4 - SAO 03 NOV 2017.qxd (Page 16)

SOUTH ASIAN OBSERVER NEWS 3
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 2017

India's TB success a myth says Canadian expert

ndia has miles to go before it successfully charting out a National Strategic Plan, rolling Médecins Sans Frontières in both cities. and four to a bed. Dr. Singh, the lead doctor, was
tackles tuberculosis, Stephen Lewis, co- out the diagnostic tool GeneXpert, going in for Mr. Lewis, who has been Canada's explaining to us that there was no way to
Ifounder and co-director of international a broader rollout of two new drugs, Ambassador to the United Nations, says the isolate children with TB, nor was there focused
advocacy organisation AIDS-Free World, has bedaquiline and delamanid, and the Prime goal of eliminating TB by 2025 is aspirational paediatric care for children in specialised
said. Mr. Lewis, who was on a fact-finding tour Minister too adding his voice to the crescendo mythology. "During our trip, we barely heard Multi Drug Resistant-TB settings. They were
of New Delhi and Mumbai earlier this month, of endorsement. reference to latent TB, although a third of the breaking pills for adults into small fragments,
has come out with 'TB in India: Rhetoric vs. "I want, with all my heart, to believe that this population has it, and it could, with hoping for successful treatment of childhood
Reality', a report that says it's too early to picture of achievement is real. But I am seized hallucinatory implications, lead to active TB. TB." Mr. Lewis also talks about the 18-year-old
shower accolades on the Indian government, by incredulity. There are too many factors that The social determinants of health lie in tatters: girl from Patna, who had to go to court to get
and nothing in the last several years lends give me pause," Mr. Lewis said. He spent four homelessness, overcrowding, poor nutrition, access to the highly-controlled anti-TB drug
confidence. days in New Delhi and three in Mumbai with food insecurity and excruciating poverty, taken bedaquiline, and how she has not shown any
Mr. Lewis claims in his report that many in colleague Georgia White, visiting public and together, constitute a death knell for public signs of the disease after bedaquiline. "It is,
India and other countries feel India has private sector facilities, senior bureaucrats, the health." however, incomparably sad to report that her
dramatically turned the corner on TB, with the World Health Organisation, USAID, the Clinton Referring to a visit to a paediatric hospital in lungs are so compromised that survival will be
government calling for its elimination by 2025, Health Access Initiative, Gates and the New Delhi, he said, "Toddlers were lying three a constant struggle.