Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 8
Fresh from her excruciating struggle against brain tuberculosis, 22-year-old Chinmayi cannot stop smiling.
“I am not afraid of tuberculosis now. TB is afraid of me,” says the young woman after the government recently named her a TB champion who will power India’s anti-TB campaign starting this year.
Chinmayi’s mission is cut out before her. She has to inspire lakhs of TB-infected persons like herself to report the disease and fight the stigma associated with it.
“Chinmayi’s resilience against TB is already inspiring patients across Odisha,” says Dr Sangeeta Sharma of the National Institute of Tuberculosis, who has been involved with the girl’s treatment since initial years of detection of her disease.
It was 2016 when Chinmayi, a bright college student in Odisha’s Berhampur, was detected with brain TB, a rare and extremely painful form of the disease caused by bacterial infection.
“The first casualty was my unborn child as I had a painful abortion. The second casualty was my marriage. My husband didn’t think twice before abandoning me after he learnt that I had been detected with brain TB. The disease caused severe paralysis. Within days of detection, my life as I knew it had ended. The stigma was more painful than TB,” Chinmayi told The Tribune in an interview after the Ministry of Health celebrated her victory over TB at a recent event in the capital.
Three years down the line, Chinmayi is back to her feet and is learning to dance classical forms again. She credits her father — also her dance guru — for the turnaround and survival.
“Had it not been for my father, I would be dead by now. But here I am today, standing before you as a TB champion. Over the past six months, I have encouraged over 100 TB patients to strive against the disease and abandonment that comes with it. Wherever I go as a government-appointed TB champion, I urge to people not to isolate patients and to be supportive. Care is the key in TB treatment,” said Chinmayi.
Brain TB, experts say, is so painful that patients often speak of cutting their head off and keeping it aside.
Chinmayi endured that pain as she battled a drug resistant form of TB for which the only treatment available until a month ago was a series of painful injections.
India this month launched oral treatment regimen for drug-resistant TB which will not be painful and will raise the treatment success rate from 40 per cent at present to around 70 per cent.
India has the highest burden of TB, the most fatal communicable disease in the world with 27 per cent global new cases coming from India alone.
The government has committed itself to eliminating TB by 2025, five years ahead of the UN Sustainable Development Goal Target of 2030.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/31XJ81z
via Today’s News Headlines
No comments: