New Delhi:
A TB hospital in the capital told the Delhi High Court on Monday that if the
new TB medicine by Johnson and Johnson is given to a patient suffering from a
drug resistant variant of the disease without carrying out proper tests, it
could lead to development of a strain which is resistant to this medication
also.
The Lala Ram Swarup (LRS) TB hospital made the submission in its
affidavit before Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva who listed the matter for hearing on
January 11 as the central government has not yet filed its affidavit indicating
whether the drug can be made available to the patient.
The hospital has said that the
drug cannot be made available to the patient to be administered by some other
doctor as the medicine is to be used as per the “strict guidelines and policy”
of the government which supplies Bedaquiline to the hospital.
It has said the drug was only
available under a “conditional access programme” and cannot be simply given to
the patient.
The hospital has also said
that further tests of the patient's sputum were necessary to ascertain the
other medication which has to be given in combination with Bedaquiline, the new
drug by Johnson and Johnson.
It also denied the allegation
that carrying out tests and waiting for their result were a bureaucratic
requirement. The submissions were made in response to the plea by Kaushal
Tripathi, father of the 18-year-old patient, who has claimed that the new drug
was the only option for his daughter.
The hospital's reply came after the court on January 4 had asked it to
say on affidavit whether the patient can be treated with Bedaquiline without
any further tests. According to his plea, the drug is only available at six TB
hospitals across the country and is supplied in limited quantity by the
manufacturer to the central government under a health programme.
Tripathi has claimed that his
daughter meets the requirements under the WHO guidelines and Revised National
TB Control programme for being treated by Bedaquiline, made by the US drug
company.-PTI
Source:DNA-10th January,2017
