Do-gooders step up to provide planned meals to help treat those with drug-resistant strain of disease.Following a Mumbai Mirror report detailing the efforts of a Dadar couple who have taken it upon themselves to aid the treatment of 291 Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) patients by arranging for them to be served daily planned-nutrition meals free of cost, scores of others, ranging from a hotelier to a private bank, have offered to provide similar sustenance to several thousands afflicted with the disease.This paper reported on September 18 that the husband and wife, both doctors, had launched a pilot programme in Dharavi to make available a carefully-crafted diet of high protein food to supplement secondline medication prescribed to patients diagnosed with MDR-TB in that neighbourhood.By far the largest benefactor is a public sector bank, which was constituted in the early 60s.In reaction to Mumbai Mirror’s report, the financial institution has agreed to fund a Rs 2.5 crore Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) project that will provide one daily meal to 7,608 MDR-TB and 300 XDR-TB patients for a year.The city corporation’s TB consultant, Dr. Arun Bamne, said the project will begin in January. “The nutritional support project will have a two pronged approach – it will help in early recovery of the patients and it will increase the treatment compliance too,” he said. A team from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences will help the civic body in creating the delivery mechanism and other operational aspects of the endeavour, with the World Health Organisation providing technical support.Dr. Bamne said the meal plan will include upma, sheera and sukhdi, a sweet made from wheat flour and jaggery cooked in ghee. The BMC has settled on a Nagpur-based vendor who supplies food for the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the state government’s midday meal programme, to prepare food for the bank-funded project. “If the pilot project is successful, it will be extended by a year and may also be implemented in other parts of the state,” said Dr. Bamne.But altruism isn’t confined to large institutions. Subsequent to the article appearing in print, a 63-year-old woman who owns a hotel in Churchgate, and who wished to remain anonymous, adopted 110 MDR-TB patients from G South Ward, which spans Prabhadevi and surrounding areas. “She has said she would like to donate nutritious food to the patients,” said Dr. Minni Khetarpal, Head of Mumbai’s TB cell.Two months after the report appeared, an NGO, which too chose not to be named, adopted 100 TB-affected children (they had contracted two strains of the disease: MDR and Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) TB) from Sion, Govandi and Mankhurd. “So far, we have been providing food supplements to 20 MDR and 20 XDR children from Sion Hospital,” a spokesperson for the NGO said. “They are served soy milk, peanut chikki, bananas, eggs and protein powder. We have received good feedback from their parents.”Under-nutrition or lack of adequate food is the biggest cause of TB infection spreading in the country. “It’s not just the medicines that help but the good calories and high protein diet as well, which builds immunity,” explained Dr. Lalit Anande, chief medical officer at Sewri TB Hospital. Patients who develop drug resistant TB are susceptible to multiple complications, given that most known medication has little or no effect in battling the mycobacterium.The programme, according to a doctor who caters to those suffering from the disease, has resulted in a fall in the number of kids dropping out of treatment owing to the painful side effects resulting from medicating patients without bolstering treatment with planned meals. “Drug resistant TB patients have 10-12 medicines every day. These medicines are known for their extreme side effects. When a patient takes them accompanied by a health meal, he or she automatically develops the mechanism to tolerate the medicines better,” said Dr Khetarpal.Help for those diagnosed with drug resistant TB has also arrived in the form of small groups of young professionals. Pradnya Halankar, who works in the Information Technology (IT) sector, and her group of 12 friends, will see to the nutritional needs of 16 drug resistant TB patients and their families from Andheri (East). “I was diagnosed with first line TB this year and I have just finished my treatment. I know the importance of nutritious food,” Halankar said. “And it’s not only the patients who need immunity, but the entire family members have to be on a good diet so that they don’t contract the disease, which is why we have decided to feed them as well.” Halankar and her friends provide these families three kg of dal, five kg of rice, a litre of cooking oil, a kilo of jaggery, one of salt and a kilo of peanuts for six months.