Globally, stress, fear, anxiety and isolation stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic have made mental health a prominent topic in public disco...
Globally, stress, fear, anxiety and isolation stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic have made mental health a prominent topic in public discourse.
While this is a welcome change from the deafening silence on mental health issues, we need to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to managing mental health and infectious diseases together. Not just in the context of Covid-19, but also for tuberculosis.
TB is an epidemic which kills over 1,200 Indians on an average daily, and has dire mental health effects. As per the World Health Organization, between 40% and 70% of TB patients have comorbid mental health disorders. Add to this fact that a WHO report also cites that India has the dubious distinction of having the highest burden of tuberculosis cases globally.
TB and mental health are twin comorbidities that affect a significant number of people in India and yet, the National TB Elimination Programme does not even list mental health as a comorbidity for TB, much less invest in managing these comorbidities.
The medical community is also generally focused on diagnosis and treatment and does not consider mental health concerns to be a relevant factor in TB treatment outcomes. This is because historically, physical health has been given more importance than mental health. So,...
