Hyderabad: Over 500 cases of tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) or brain TB have been recorded in Telangana during the first eleven months of 2016. These findings were revealed by a study conducted recently by city-based NGO Helping Hand Foundation.
According to the study, the number of male patients was 232 while the number of female patients was 210. The majority of the patients were found to be aged above 30 years.
B. Ranga Reddy, president, Infection Control Academy of India (IFCAI), and advisor, Public Health Foundation of India, stressed on the need for more awareness about the medical condition and reducing the unnecessary usage of antibiotics in agriculture and livestock.
Mujtaba Hasan Askari, founder-trustee of the foundation, said, “It is time that the civil society and the medical fraternity take up the fight against TB and mount pressure on the health authorities..”
Dr. Afshan Jabeen, an additional professor of neurology at the Institute of Medical Sciences in Nizam has attributed the challenge to drug resistance. According to her patients did not respond to the first and second levels of antibiotics and had to be placed on the third and highest level. Failure to conduct early diagnosis in brain TB also leads to permanent loss of vision, loss of limb function, seizures and even death.
It must be noted that Brain TB is caused by infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The membranes of the central nervous system are infected by viral and fungal strains.