A MDR-TB Survivor in India Shares Her Remarkable Story

Trupti

Imagine you’re climbing a mountain. You’re reaching where you always wanted to reach. And then suddenly, there’s an avalanche, pushing you into a deep, dark, endless tunnel. That’s how I felt when I was diagnosed with TB.

I am Trupti Chiwukula. And this is my story. I was 25 when I was diagnosed with TB for the first time. I did not know it was TB in the beginning. The diagnosis took a very long time.

Dr Rodriguez

TB is an infectious disease that is caused by an organism called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. What makes it exceptionally virulent is that it is transmitted through the air.

TB actually has killed more human beings than any other infectious disease. And I think the important points to note is that accurate diagnosis has the potential to be a cornerstone in TB control.

Dr Udwadia

TB is like an escalator. Starting with simple drug-sensitive TB which anyone can treat within 6 months. But if it is not treated appropriately, you amplify the resistance, from sensitive TB to MDR TB.

Trupti

I was given a treatment which did not suit my body. To which I responded in a horrible manner. I had major muscle inflammation. That is extremely painful.

Dr Udwadia

Bad treatment only served to partially suppress the germ. And then TB comes back with a bang, as it always does. And it recurred and resurfaced a few years later. She came back with a more advanced stage of drug-resistant TB, and that’s when I first saw her.

Dr Rodriguez

The lab diagnostic of TB is extremely important to tell us that indeed this patient is either MDR, that is multidrug resistant, or he is even worse, that is XDR, that is extensively drug resistant.

I think that early screening tests with cartridge-based nucleic amplification technology are the way to go. The turnaround time for molecular tests cannot even be compared to culture, it’s much faster.

Dr Udwadia

Within 6 hours often, I can get a report in hand, that’s nearly point of care, that kind of speed, telling me that my patient suffers from drug-resistant TB. The old generation of tests, the culture tests, took at least 6 to 8 weeks before you got a positive culture, and then a sensitivity report in hand. So that’s a huge advance for the treating physician.

Trupti

When I was diagnosed with TB, my partner with whom I was going to get married to backed out. It’s a bad social stigma that one has to face, and that just triggered the urge in me to shout it out to the world that yes, I have TB. I started posting everything on social media.  I shared my life, and I got to know so many stories, and somewhere I am talking on behalf of all of those people.

Dr Udwadia

TB carries so much stigma in our society, sadly. People with TB are shunned, as people with infectious diseases used to be shunned centuries ago, because people’s mindsets have stayed stuck.

Dr Rodriguez

I think awareness is key. Remember that a patient transmits TB. It has far reaching implications on the society as well. Patient doesn’t need to be ashamed that he has TB, because TB is curable. We have enough happy stories to tell you. There is a CB-NAAT that we recently finished a study on, which actually detects XDR TB. So this particular test is well poised to be a reflex test, for a patient who turns out to be MTB positive.

Dr Udwadia

Trupti’s medical journey like that of any patient with MDR TB involved a mountain, so to speak, that they had to climb. And today is a happy day, because she’s finally declared cured of her drug-resistant TB. She’s now a healthy, active member of society.

Trupti

I’ve learned finding hope in the most difficult situations. This is what life is.

Closing claim
India has the world’s highest tuberculosis burden.
The government of India has launched a national TB elimination programme to try and eradicate the disease by 2025.
The mission to end TB in India continues…

This video was first published in 2021 as a commercial feature on bbc.com/StoryWorks and was created by BBC StoryWorks, BBC Global News’s commercial content division, on behalf of Cepheid.