India urged to take action on unregulated tuberculosis drug sales

23 March 2014

Although cases of tuberculosis are dropping in Europe, as is the incidence in the USA, an extremely slower decline has been seen in India, where two patients die every three minutes of tuberculosis (TB), accounting for 26% of the cases globally, reports The Pharma Letter’s Indian correspondent.

March 24 marks World TB Day. With the World Health Organization terming drug resistant TB a global health security risk, an international organization has urged the Indian government to curtail unregulated sale of TB drugs.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has maintained that the practise of inappropriate prescription of TB drugs in India has a significant role in the emergence of multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), that is resistant to the first line of anti-TB drugs - isonazid and rifampicin.

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