The Hindu new year has started and so is the new enthusiasm to work harder for Tuberculosis.
The recent 42nd meet on Tuberculosis at the Union at Lille, France,was a great one, which started with the discussions on the problems faced by the children's, then proceeding ahead with the vaccine, diagnostics, funding, poor countries, and so on.With the Seven Billionth Baby born, and with the recent prediction that the population on earth we will be 9 billion by 2050, our responsibility to protect the coming generations from neglected communicable disease increases.
The thing which really hurts is that Tuberculosis has been a threat to many innocent people, it lays its icy hands on them and people don't come to know about it unless they are in the later stages of the infection. In a country like India the burden is extremely high, so does the responsibility of finding a cure for the disease. (I feel myself proud to be a part of the OSDD community who has been working round the clock for finding a affordable cure.)
After reading so much about tuberculosis, attending conferences, meeting and talking to different people, I have realized is that its very important to look at the disease with a different prospective. Tuberculosis affects all age groups of people, both the sexes, and round the year. However, the effects which are seen differ and shows lots of variation symptomatically. Children's have low immunity power, hence they fall prey to this disease and life expectancy is hardly for few years then if not diagnosed earlier. In adults the power to resist the bacterial infection is more. Genital tb affects the pregnancy in women and causes problems in them to conceive. HIV infection greatly increases the risk of getting a Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. The statistical figures shows that most of the TB cases are to the one who has been infected with HIV. Thus, the disease can affect a person in numerous ways and so does the symptoms, diagnostics, life expectancy variates accordingly.
Then why shouldn't the drug discovery and development process should be carried keeping in mind the above prospectives? The problem which we are well aware of is that rifampicin/isoniazids is administered for over 40 years now for all the above cases. The toxicity of the drugs is killing many kids around the world, because there is no specific drug guideline for them. Women face lots of hormonal disturbances due to these medicines. The treatment time is undefined for each of the specific types. Hence, there is lot of scope for the researchers to improve the way of the drug research. Using a multi pronged approach may give us a molecule for any of the types, which can be then improved and developed for other types of the disease.
The other things on TB apart from drug discovery, is that, millions of people in India still remain undiagnosed of TB. Over 70% of population lives in over six hundred thousand villages, of which many till today do not have electricity, roads, proper living conditions and shelter, the disease is not possible to get diagnosed. Hence the figures keeps on increasing year by year in the conferences and we are unable to do anything. If a change has to be brought our way of working on TB should change. Awareness on TB is very poor amongst population in many countries, hence, special emphasis should be there to raise awareness between them. Vaccine development is also a brighter side, as we can protect the future generations from TB. Funding is required most urgently now, and the the funds should flow appropriately to all the discussed domains to see a substantial change in the number of TB cases.Overall, an integrated approach is the answer to eradicate tuberculosis from planet Earth :)
The thing which really hurts is that Tuberculosis has been a threat to many innocent people, it lays its icy hands on them and people don't come to know about it unless they are in the later stages of the infection. In a country like India the burden is extremely high, so does the responsibility of finding a cure for the disease. (I feel myself proud to be a part of the OSDD community who has been working round the clock for finding a affordable cure.)
After reading so much about tuberculosis, attending conferences, meeting and talking to different people, I have realized is that its very important to look at the disease with a different prospective. Tuberculosis affects all age groups of people, both the sexes, and round the year. However, the effects which are seen differ and shows lots of variation symptomatically. Children's have low immunity power, hence they fall prey to this disease and life expectancy is hardly for few years then if not diagnosed earlier. In adults the power to resist the bacterial infection is more. Genital tb affects the pregnancy in women and causes problems in them to conceive. HIV infection greatly increases the risk of getting a Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. The statistical figures shows that most of the TB cases are to the one who has been infected with HIV. Thus, the disease can affect a person in numerous ways and so does the symptoms, diagnostics, life expectancy variates accordingly.
Then why shouldn't the drug discovery and development process should be carried keeping in mind the above prospectives? The problem which we are well aware of is that rifampicin/isoniazids is administered for over 40 years now for all the above cases. The toxicity of the drugs is killing many kids around the world, because there is no specific drug guideline for them. Women face lots of hormonal disturbances due to these medicines. The treatment time is undefined for each of the specific types. Hence, there is lot of scope for the researchers to improve the way of the drug research. Using a multi pronged approach may give us a molecule for any of the types, which can be then improved and developed for other types of the disease.
The other things on TB apart from drug discovery, is that, millions of people in India still remain undiagnosed of TB. Over 70% of population lives in over six hundred thousand villages, of which many till today do not have electricity, roads, proper living conditions and shelter, the disease is not possible to get diagnosed. Hence the figures keeps on increasing year by year in the conferences and we are unable to do anything. If a change has to be brought our way of working on TB should change. Awareness on TB is very poor amongst population in many countries, hence, special emphasis should be there to raise awareness between them. Vaccine development is also a brighter side, as we can protect the future generations from TB. Funding is required most urgently now, and the the funds should flow appropriately to all the discussed domains to see a substantial change in the number of TB cases.Overall, an integrated approach is the answer to eradicate tuberculosis from planet Earth :)
Thanks :)
