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Monday, August 23, 2010

Fixed dose combination in treatment of Tuberculosis in Nepal

Nepal as a nation is battling with tuberculosis since long time .DOTS(directly observed treatment short course )have been successful in containing tuberculosis in Nepal.But with the emergence of HIV and emergence multi-drug resistance tuberculosis ,tuberculosis is now again spreading it's fangs .The government of Nepal along with the Ministry of Health knowing this problem has launched Fixed dose combination in treatment in treatment of tuberculosis from fiscal year 2065/66 B.S.(2008/09).Fixed dose combination is not a new approach in countries like Brazil and South Africa but in countries like Nepal it is relatively newer approach.
The difference between fixed dose combination and mono-therapy is that the different essential drugs that were used in treatment of different categories of tuberculosis that is CAT-I (category one ),CAT-II and CAT-III tuberculosis were given separately , so patients had to take many tablets as much as 16 tablets daily ,so this was one of the main cause that people used to avoid taking drugs in the middle of treatment course , as the result of which the drug compliance among the patient use to fall in the course of treatment. But now with the Fixed dose combination patient have to take as maximum upto 5 tablets per day .The reason behind this is the drug that are used in intensive as well as continuous phase are combined into one ,as for treatment in intensive phase of category I tuberculosis four drugs are required all are combined into one .So the compliance for patient is increased besides this storage for the drug distribution is also improved .As for Nepal FDCS have been started now what will be it's result has to be seen .

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