Coronavirus Affects India's Tuberculosis Care

Brijesh, who declined to give his full name fearing being identified as someone with TB — which still brings stigma and discrimination — was not alone in his struggle in India, home to the world’s highest number of TB cases

- Annie Banerji

When India’s strict coronavirus lockdown let migrant worker Brijesh jobless overnight, he had to make a quick decision — leave for his home village or wait to collect his tuberculosis medicine.

With no public transport to get to the local tuberculosis (TB) centre, he decided to pack up and head to his home more than 1,100 kms away in eastern Bihar state.

“Everything was shut. There was no guarantee that I would get my medicines,” said the 44-year-old, who had been working as a scrap dealer on the outskirts of Delhi.

“I had little savings and worried about feeding my wife and daughter. So I panicked and let,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from his village in Darbhanga district.

Brijesh, who declined to give his full name fearing being identified as someone with TB — which still brings stigma and discrimination — was not alone in his struggle in India, home to the world’s highest number of TB cases.

Data from the World Health Organization shows about 10 million people fell ill with TB in 2018 with 1.5 million deaths. India accounted for 27% of new cases and nearly 450,000 deaths.

The nearly 70-day national lockdown enforced in India in late March let millions of TB sufferers with little to no access to crucial drugs, doctors and follow-up treatments.

Health experts have raised concerns that the pandemic has overwhelmed India’s precarious healthcare system, with most medical personnel and services pushed into the fight against COVID-19 while placing TB care on the back-burner.