Treatment Initiation among Patients with Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis in Bhopal District, India

Abstract

Revised national tuberculosis control programme in India has limited co-hort-wise information about what happens to patients diagnosed with mul-tidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB). We determined the pre-treatment loss to fol-low-up (non-initiation of treatment by programme within 6 months of diag-nosis) and time from diagnosis to treatment initiation in Bhopal district, cen-tral India (2014). Pre-treatment loss to follow-up was 13% (0.95 CI: 7%, 23%), not significantly different from the national estimates (18%) and median time to initiate treatment was seven days, lower than that reported elsewhere in the country. Bhopal was performing well with reference to time to treatment ini-tiation in programmatic settings.