Multi Drug Resistant TB
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1996 May / Jun Vol V No 3.
Pravin Kumar.
A round 170 years ago a lawyer was converted and became a great Homoeopath by few doses of Pulsatilla as he was not relieved of Tuberculosis inspite of the best treatment available then. Boenninghausens case tells us even today that, when " Medicine (allopathic) fails, Surgery" helps; when both fail Homoeopathy helps".
Unfortunately it has become, mostly, an order of the day to try other systems first and then turn to Homoeopathy. Otherwise even in fresh cases of Tuberculosis, Homoeopathy can be highly effective. The Antimicrobial drugs are toxic either damaging the Liver, or Kidneys or Ears mainly. So to avoid these bad effects the cases can be treated with Homoeo drugs, which are almost harmless.
But in the cases of Multi-drug resistant TB, there is choice but to resort to Homoeopathy, if one understands clearly. The line of treatment in allopathy for these cases is less satisfactory. The magnitude of Tuberculosis has to be clearly understood by every one concerned. One third of the population of the world is infected with Myco TB, causative organism for TB. There are 30 million cases of active Tuberculosis in the world 10 million new cases occur annually and 3 million people die of Tuberculosis each year accounting for 6 percent of all deaths world-wide.
The recently published WHO report on 21-3-96 sent shock waves through ones spine , that deaths due to TB had reached historic levels surpassing even the worst years of the epidemic around 1900. It forecasts that upto half a billion could get affected by the disease in next 50 years, with an increasing incidence of often-incurable multi-drug resistant variety of the disease. And also states that many TB treatment programmes are so poorly supported that they are producing stronger bacteria and weaker patients.
Till 1985 the incidence of TB was slowly falling down but there is a reverse trend since then and it is alarmingly increasing, probably due to two main reasons viz increasing the number of AIDS cases, as TB infection in them is more, and Multi-drug resistant strains.
These drug-resistant cases would be more among those who contracted their infection from patients with known drug resistance or with known non-compliance and in patients who come from areas where drug resistance is common. And if there is a relapse in a previously treated patient, a major concern should be the possibility of drug resistance. Apart from the cases where the patients default could be the cause, in one-third of patients, the relapse is caused by drug-resistant organisms.
These statements would definitely place the role of Homoeopathy in the treatment of multi-drug resistant TB cases at a far superior level.
Coupled with accidental experiences in three cases and the information at hand, I joined hands with allopathic research people to conduct a scientific evaluation of our drugs efficacy in the multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis cases.
In National Tuberculosis Institute, Bangalore, the Microbiologist, from Hyderabad, Ms Chitra Chandrasekharan, has been conducting experiments on culture media and animal modules with our drugs. I have selected and given 3 drugs and in6 and 200 potencies each, viz:-Pulsatilla, Tuberculinum (30 and 200 potencies) and Ars-iod. So far, after 2 months experimentation it has been found to our pleasant surprise that there was no growth of multi-drug resistant strains of Myco TB organism in the culture media which were earlier mixed with the serial dilutions of our 3 drugs.
In vitro a standard control, strain of H37 RV was used. Three Homoeo drugs (Ars-iod, Pulsatilla and Tuberculinum) were incorporated in Lowenstein Jensen medium in different dilutions to evaluate the MIC (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration. All the slopes were inoculated with the standard references strain of H37 RV and incubated for 28 days showed that there was no growth of colonies in Ars-iod., Tuberculinum30 and Pulsatilla 200 in 1:10 dilution. There was growth of colonies in Pulsatilla 6 containing culture medium. Along with these medicines "Absolute alcohol" was also taken as control because our drugs main vehicle is alcohol. Even in this control there was no growth observed.
These observations would make us infer that the medicines except Pulsatilla 6, are capable of inhibiting the growths of the organisms but alcohol may also be acting as inhibitory. So the next phase of research was to eliminate the action of alcohol as control.
After 28 days of incubation, it was found that there was growth of colonies in every culture, including the control, except in Tuberculinum 30. It indicates that Tuberculinum 30 is capable of inhibiting the growth of these resistant strains. The animal model is the albino guinea pig. In them 3 different dosage regimen is to be followed to evaluate the effect of these three medicines after 48 days of experimentation. The animal modules result is still awaited, So far these experiments are scientifically confirming the tremendous capability of our drugs even in these tough strains.
The day is not far when the Government of India would realize and incorporate our system in the National programme of control of Tuberculosis.
