Drug-resistant TB death in Navi Mumbai
Navi Mumbai resident Sriram Radhakrishnan, 19, succumbed to extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XXDR-TB) at a hospital in Nerul on Monday. This is the second XXDR-TB death in the satellite city in two months, after Azis Shaikh died on October 5, Abhishek Desai reports.
Navi Mumbai resident Sriram Radhakrishnan, 19, succumbed to extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XXDR-TB) at a hospital in Nerul on Monday. This is the second XXDR-TB death in the satellite city in two months, after Azis Shaikh died on October 5.
Dr Ramesh Nikam, health department chief of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, said, “We have only four cases of XXDR-TB in Navi Mumbai [Radhakrishnan was not registered in the TB control programme]. One of them succumbed in October.”
A patient resistant to all known first- and second-line TB drugs is classified as having XXDR-TB.
A former student of Apeejay School in Nerul, Radhakrishnan first fell ill in May last year when he complained of fever, and was diagnosed with tuberculosis a month later.
“The steroids he was prescribed suppressed his immunity. He also had other complications related to meningitis,” said his father R Radhakrishnan.
Doctors at PD Hinduja in Mahim, which had announced in January that it had detected 12 cases of totally drug-resistant (TDR) tuberculosis, confirmed Radhakrishnan had XXDR-TB. He was discharged from the hospital on November 30 after a prolonged stay.