Study highlights 'catastrophic costs' incurred by tuberculosis patients worldwide

University of Ottawa, said that patients incurring catastrophic costs are two to four times more likely to experience treatment failure.
Therefore, mitigating treatment costs will not only benefit individuals, but also health systems and communities at large, they said.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Symptoms include a persistent cough, chest pain, fever, fatigue, among others.
Findings, published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health, also showed that costs were consistently higher among patients having drug resistant tuberculosis and those identified through 'passive case finding'.
The researchers suggested that actively finding cases, along with improving access to tests for drug resistant tuberculosis, may help mitigate the burden of out-of-pocket expenditures incurred by patients.

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The World Health Organization's 'End TB' strategy envisages to «eliminate catastrophic costs for TB-affected households by 2030».
Adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2014, the strategy serves as a blueprint for bringing down tuberculosis incidence by 80 per cent, and deaths by 90 per cent, by 2030.
However, the study's findings have demonstrated that «free» TB care under national programs is not adequate to prevent patients from facing severe financial burdens during diagnosis and treatment.
India's 'National TB Elimination Programme' provides free diagnosis and subsidised care, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
For the analysis, the researchers reviewed 76 studies, most of which were conducted in Asian and African countries, across urban and rural settings. Majority of the studies were also published in the past