Brain TB on a rise in Hyderabad’s Old City

Hyderabad: Due to lack of sanitation, low awareness of the importance of healthy lifestyle along with the presence of widespread superstition, people in Old City suffer some serious ailments. There were earlier reports of increasing cases of ‘hernia’ among people; now have emerged reports that brain TB (brain tuberculosis) is on a rise in the Old City.

The ailment is spurting especially in slum areas, so much so that out of every 10 cases reported from south of the Musi river are related with extrapulmonary TB, most of them are related to the brain. The lung TB (pulmonary) when sometimes infect other body parts, called extrapulmonary TB.

According to a report by TOI, Helping Hand Foundation (HHF) conducted a survey of the number of cases of brain TB at different hospitals, which said most of the people suffering from brain TB did not take BCG (anti-TB vaccine).

The survey further revealed that families in Old City are reluctant to get their children vaccinated against TB and other diseases. The foundation said that this behaviour is due to illiteracy, superstition and lack of awareness about vaccination.

Also Read: Hyderabad: Lifestyle diseases increasing in Old City, many women suffer from “hernia”

Tuberculosis, that is generally contagious, brain TB is not. Mycobacterium tuberculosis infects the lungs, and if is not treated in time, the bacteria can travel through the bloodstream to infect other organs and tissues. Brain TB is caused when membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord get infected.

“Between 250 and 300 new cases of TB are reported every month from Old City. Young girls and boys between 15 and 20 years are falling victim. A large government tertiary hospital in the city has reported 15 confirmed cases of brain TB during March this year,” HHF managing trustee Mujtaba Hasan Askari said.