Youtube Video Competition on Need of New Drugs for TB
Zakir Thomas
Tuberculosis
is a curable infectious disease. Yet every 20 seconds it kills someone
somewhere in the world. In India alone two people die of TB every three
minutes. However we do not hear a media outcry or a newsblitz on these deaths
that regularly happen, day after day, year after year. This is because TB
related deaths are so regular that it has ceased to be news.
The
current TB therapy is a combination of four drugs (rifampicin, isoniazid,
pyrazinamide, ethionamide) administered over a period of six to nine months. This
therapy is to be administered under the direct supervision of a physician,
called, Directly Observed Therapy, short duration (DOTS) (it is left to you to
wonder who is the optimist who chose a six month treatment as a short duration
therapy). DOTS do have issues of hepatotoxicity and the
long duration itself leads to treatment drop out and failures. Treatment
failures and dropouts lead to multidrug resistant TB (MDRTB) which requires a lengthier
(18 months) recourse more toxic second line therapy. Emergence of extremely
drug resistant (XDRTB) is a serious cause of worry as many drugs are
ineffective. MDR and XDR arises when common TB goes untreated or when person
drops out of treatment.
The
urgent need is to find new and more effective drugs that are of shorter
duration and less toxic.
The
DOTS drugs were discovered in the fifties and the sixties of the last century.
Over more than four decades no new first line drugs have been invented. There
are several reasons for this. The inventive pharmaceutical companies do not
have adequate incentives to invest in the drugs for TB as the market size of TB
is estimated to be less than four
hundred dollars while the estimated cost of drug development is much higher.
It
is not insignificant that most people who contract TB or die of it are from the
poorer sections of the society living in the developing and least developed
regions of the world. They do not have a voice to say that that all lives,
wherever you belong to, have equal value.
To
enable you to give a voice to the voiceless TB patients, OSDD (www.osdd.net) along with Vigyan Prasaar (http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/index.asp)
has organized a Youtube based short video competition. This competition is open
for entries till 26 November, 2012. The prizes will be determined by an
experienced jury who will also consider the number of online ‘likes’ you have
received for your video. There are first, second and third prizes and 20 merit
prizes to win. Anyone above 18 can participate. The duration of the movie shall
be less then 5 minutes. You may even shoot from your mobile and upload like a
citizen journalist, fill the form and submit it for competition. More details
are at: http://www.osdd.net/home/student-corner/student-corner-news-updates/shootuploadwinyoutubevideocompetitionontheneedofnewdrugsfortb
However,
this is more than a competition. It is about giving a voice to the unheard and
suffering TB patients. It is about a category of diseases called neglected
diseases. It is about creating awareness about the desperate need of new drugs
for TB
It will give you a chance to speak up of the need of new drugs for TB.
To
know more about TB, please visit
To
read about TB in India, please see a recent series in The Hindu
India’s
Tuberculosis Challenge by R Prasad
India
has highest number of Multi Drug Cases in South Asia by Aarti Dhar
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3156259.ece
