Homeopathic treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis patients

The WHO declared tuberculosis a global emergency in 1993. India is listed amongst the 22 high-burden TB countries and accounts for 30% of the global burden of TB. The National Tuberculosis Control Program launched in 1962 in India was a failure and a new approach called Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) based on the WHO's Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) strategy was adopted in 1997. After adopting DOTS, treatment success rates more than tripled from 25% to 84% and TB death rates have been cut 7-fold from 29% to 4%. Though DOTS treats the majority of TB patients and prevents new drug-resistant cases from arising, patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are generally not cured by standard 4–5 drug short-course chemotherapy, the cornerstone of DOTS. The incidence of MDR-TB in India is estimated to be 25% of total cases. The WHO's initiative of DOTS Plus to control MDR-TB within the DOTS strategy through second-line anti-TB drugs in low- and middle-income countries is still in its trial phase. The drugs are expensive or unavailable. Multi-drug resistant TB is therefore often untreatable and is a virtual death sentence in low-income countries.

Therefore a project to evaluate the role of homeopathic treatment in MDR-TB cases has been started at one of the RNTCP DOTS therapy centres, with indoor and outdoor facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis. The cases of MDR-PTB who had taken a full course of the WHO recommended regimen containing Rifampicin plus Isoniazid throughout and who remained or became again sputum smear-positive at the end of repeat treatment (the second-line regimen) are being included in the study. The cases were evaluated on the basis of symptomatic changes, sputum smear examination, sputum culture and changes in Haemoglobin, ESR and radiological appearances of the lungs. Five cases from the study are presented in detail, highlighting the working methodology and efficacy of homeopathic treatment in MDR-TB cases.

Keywords:

Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) in India, Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS), multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Schlüsselwörter:

Revidiertes nationales Tuberkulose-Kontrollprogramm (RNTP) in Indien, direkt überwachte Kurztherapie (DOTS), multiresistente Tuberkulose (MDR-TB).

Korrespondierender Autor: Prof. Dr. D.P. Rastogi, E1/G7Alaknanda, Shopping Complex, 110019 New Delhi, India

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