Preventive therapy for the latent TB infection among the contacts who live, eat and spend a lot of time with pulmonary TB patient, with one 300 mg tablet of isoniazid, one 300 mg tablet of rifapentine with one vitamin capsule once a week for 12 weeks, calls for a serious relook at the treatment.
Sources said just one contact of the pulmonary TB patient had started this 3 tablet a week preventive therapy when in his very first dose of it the contact who had consumed the above mentioned medicines developed huge vomiting forcing the district TB officer Palamu Dr Anil Kumar Srivastav to discontinue it with immediate effect.
Dr Srivastav told the Pioneer today "This contact took one full dose of the preventive therapy for the latent TB infection following his spending time with a lungs TB patient in the family for just one week only.Unfortunately this contact had a bout of vomiting. We decided to ask him to discontinue it."
On being asked if this preventive therapy for the latent TB infection among the contacts of the lungs TB was a local initiative to which Srivastav said " It is a pan India initiative to mitigate the latent TB infection among the contacts of the lungs TB patient. There had come to Daltonganj WHO Consultant for TB and drug resistant TB (roster) Dr Rajeev Ranjan Pathak from Ranchi and jointly it was launched."
Srivastav said he would seek suggestions from WHO Consultant Pathak as to how to go about this preventive therapy for the latent TB infection among the contacts who live with lungs TB patient and show adverse effects on its medication.
He said as of now there is no contact of the lungs TB patient on the preventive therapy for the latent TB infection here in Palamu.
Medical sources said such reaction to medicines is not unusual but what matters is that contacts who think themselves to be free of the visible signs of TB but are most vulnerable to latent TB infection, just get reluctant to take anti TB infection medicine terming it as unwarranted medication and when such adverse effects come, the reluctance to taking preventive therapy gets further stronger and stubborn.
There are 1,924 active TB patients in Palamu and majority of them are lungs TB patients who pose risk to members of the family whom we call contacts for our reference said Srivastav.
Sources said in the year 2019 - 20 there was a national TB prevalence survey wherein the number of cases of the TB was higher in Palamu.
WHO Consultant for TB and drug resistant TB (roster) Dr Rajeev Ranjan Pathak had told this correspondent that only 6 districts of Jharkhand were shortlisted for the preventive therapy for the latent TB infection in the first phase and it was kick started first in Palamu.
Pathak had said they had 5,900 tablets for the latent TB infection therapy for Palamu.
Palamu district TB officer Srivastav said "We will have to put our heads together to ensure preventive therapy for the latent TB infection does not nosedive and its takers get no complication at all."