Big B disclosing he was a TB patient is a big deal
Celebrity diseases are not new in the world of cinema and glamour. Yet it came as a surprise to me when megastar Amitabh Bachchan this week disclosed that he had suffered from tuberculosis and how he overcame it successfully.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease and comes with the baggage of stigma and misconceptions. TB is also considered "a poor man's disease" and attracts the same level of stigma as HIV. That's why it was courageous for the senior Bachchan to have revealed his battle with tuberculosis some 14 years ago. The appreciation would have been far greater had the revelation been made earlier.
In the recent years, we have seen many celebrities coming out in open about their life-threatening medical conditions and becoming champions for awareness of these diseases. Cricketer Yuvraj Singh, actresses Lisa Ray and Manisha Koirala have all fought cancer, and have chosen to talk about it, inspiring many cancer patients not to lose hope. Superhero of the south, Akkineni Nageswara Rao decided to reveal his cancer the day it was diagnosed, and talked about it openly.
Several other stars - Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan, among others - have had unpleasant encounters with different medical conditions. Hollywood, too, has had its fair share of celebrity diseases, though not everyone shows the same courage as the Big B, particularly when the condition is as stigmatised as tuberculosis.
Celebrity revelation about a disease can have similar impact as celebrity endorsement of commercial products, if properly harnessed. Amitabh Bachchan has been roped in by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to help in its awareness campaign against tuberculosis. Bachchan very well epitomises the messages campaigners wish to convey - tuberculosis is not a disease only of the poor; TB patients should not be stigmatised; the disease is curable if one sticks to the prescribed drug regimen; it does not affect one's professional career and so on. These messages are critical if we want to make progress in our fight against TB.
Today, India is designated as "high burden" country for tuberculosis as it accounts for nearly a quarter of eight point six million cases globally. Though powerful drugs are available to fight tuberculosis, it is worrying to see them become ineffective due to improper administration and poor compliance. This has given rise to multidrug-resistant forms of tuberculosis - caused by TB bacteria immune to available drugs.
India is one of the countries in the world with the highest burden of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). As per Global Report on Tuberculosis 2013 published by the World Health Organisation, India accounts for 64,000 MDR-TB cases out of 300,000 cases estimated globally to occur among the notified pulmonary TB cases annually. Reports of extra-MDR-TB have also occasionally surfaced from India. Indiscriminate and injudicious use of anti-TB drugs, especially by doctors and quacks outside the national TB control programme, is contributing to the emergence of drug resistance TB.
This choice of Mumbai for Bachchan to support the anti-TB campaign is appropriate as the city has reported a large number of drug-resistant TB cases. Hopefully BMC as well as health authorities nationally will make full capital of their new brand ambassador to stamp out tuberculosis.