“It was something that I had never expected, I was really shocked,” Nandita Venkatesan said as she recalled finding out she had become re-infected with tuberculosis (TB) in 2013. It was six years after she was first diagnosed with the disease in 2007, some months before her eighteenth birthday. In a candid conversation profiled in The Lancet, Ms Venkatesan told journalist John Zaracostas about her experiences with TB and the stigma attached to the condition. A Mumbai native, Venkatesan required an eighteen-month course of medication to treat her initial TB infection. The re-infection, however, was more severe, having spread to the other organs. “It necessitated six surgeries including five done on an emergency basis to save my life“, said Venkatesan. The re-infection and after-effects of a plethora of treatments led to Venkatesan experiencing depression. It left her bedbound for two years and caused her to lose hair, weight and even her hearing, the latter as a consequence of … Read Full Article about World TB Day: Will India show leadership in the fight against TB?
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