New shorter treatment regimen for TB preventive therapy launched in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is now the first State in the country to procure the medicines for providing to household contacts of patients with TB. Medicines under the new treatment have been procured at a cost of ₹9.41 crore

Health Minister Ma. Subramanian releasing the State Strategic Plan 2.0 at the Tamil Nadu Tuberculosis Summit on Friday. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma. Subramanian launched 3HP, a new shorter treatment regimen for TB Preventive Therapy, at the Tamil Nadu Tuberculosis Summit held on Friday.

With this, Tamil Nadu is the first State in the country to procure the medicines for providing to household contacts of patients with TB. The new treatment is for household contacts aged over 18, and medicines had been procured at a cost of ₹9.41 crore.

In this new treatment, the duration of the prevention therapy is reduced to three months — three tablets per week for 12 weeks. This was started in Tiruvallur as a pilot project and is being extended to all districts. “In Tiruvallur, 35% to 47% of family contacts were found to be positive for latent TB infection,” Asha Frederick, State TB Officer, said.

Earlier, the duration of treatment was 180 days and ensuring daily consumption of drugs was a challenge. “This is a part of the multi-pronged approach in our strategy to reach elimination of TB,” she added.

The Minister also launched the Culture and Drug Susceptibility Testing labs for Coimbatore Medical College and Tiruchi Medical College. The facilities have come up at a cost of ₹3.10 crore.

He noted that there were 1,08,344 new cases of TB in the State in 2019, of which 91,405 were cured. In 2020, 68,922 persons were diagnosed with TB and 57,391 were cured. In the following year, there were 82,680 newly diagnosed cases, of which 68,810 were cured. In 2022, there were 91,592 new cases and 50,592 were cured.

The National TB Elimination Programme aims at fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving TB-free Tamil Nadu by 2025, five years ahead of the global targets. The objective is to decrease the incidence of TB in Tamil Nadu to 40/one lakh population in high-burden districts and to 10/one lakh population in low-burden districts by 2025.

The Minister also released the State Strategic Plan 2.0 and a TB awareness video. The State Prevalence Survey conducted by the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis was disseminated in the summit, organised by the Tamil Nadu State TB Cell with the support of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Soumya Swaminathan, former Chief Scientist of WHO; Health Secretary Gangandeep Singh Bedi; and Shilpa Prabhakar Satish, Mission Director of National Health Mission, Tamil Nadu, were present.