Patient treatment pathways of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis cases in coastal South India: Road to a drug resistant tuberculosis center

Abstract

Background: Delays in initiating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) treatment adds risk to individual patients and the community due to disease progression, and on-going transmission. The Government of India offers free TB diagnosis and treatment, however many presumptive MDR TB patients wander within the Indian healthcare system and delay accessing the programme. To better improve access to care, it is imperative to understand the treatment pathways taken by MDR TB patients. We aimed to describe the diagnostic and treatment pathway taken by presumptive MDR TB patients registered in the Programmatic Management Drug-resistant TB Program (PMDT). Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of all patients registered during August 2016 – April 2017 at one PMDT center of a district in Karnataka, India. A semi-standardized questionnaire collected the number, type (private vs public sector), and dates of healthcare facilities (HCFs) visits prior to the initiation of MDR TB treatment. Delays were the number of days, expressed in medians and interquartile range (IQR), from the date of onset of illness until the date of initiation of MDR TB treatment. Results: We found that patients preferred private HCFs; however, due to lack of treatment and unaffordability they shifted to public HCFs. Median delay to register under the program was more in private HCFs (180days) in comparison with public HCFs (120 days). We also found that the diagnosis of MDR among presumptive MDR cases (detection rates) were much higher (80%) in public HCFs. Conclusion: Awareness regarding the availability of free standard diagnosis and appropriate treatment under the TB program should be increased in the general population and private practitioners. The government should involve private HCFs to provide standard diagnostics and treatment to the patients seeking a private facility.