TB patients not happy with ‘ready to eat’ food packets

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However, state TB officials admitted that the pilot project in Mumbai showed that not many MDR-TB patients were happy with the choice of food, its quantity, and wanted a change. “We realised that the body mass index of patients had not improved and there was a 58 per cent refusal rate for the meals,” Dr Sanjeev Kamble, state TB officer told The Indian Express.

Subsequent meetings were held by the state health department to review the project and from October 1, the revised nutritional package was offered to MDR TB patients’ families while dispensing the medicines, Kamble said.

Undernutrition is endemic in India, with 34 % men and 36 % women between 15-49 years of age undernourished, according to National Family Health Survey NFHS-3 estimates.

These people are up to four times more likely to develop TB disease than healthy people are, as undernutrition is the leading cause of immunodeficiency globally and weakens resistance to the TB bacillus, experts have pointed out.

India has the highest number of new cases of tuberculosis and TB-related deaths in the world, with 2.3 million new cases and an estimated 320,000 deaths annually.

In this context, the Maharashtra health department had for the first time planned nutritious meals for a period of one year as part of its ambitious ‘Arogyavardhini’ programme. While the pilot programme was held in Mumbai – Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad were also selected for the scheme to provide nutrition to MDR-TB patients.

Dr N D Thakur, Pune city TB control officer however, said that the programme was not yet launched in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad.

According to Dr Kamble, the project has been revised and it will initially cater to 5,000 MDR TB and XDR (extremely drug resistant) TB patients in Mumbai. If this works successfully in Mumbai, then the project will be extended to other districts. In Pune, there are 88 cases of MDR-TB while 77 in Pimpri-Chinchwad, according to health officials.