Polish pharmacies and hospitals are short of the basic anti-TB medicine Isoniazid. Eight thousand Poles who suffer from tuberculosis are in danger.

Isoniazid is the first-line antituberculosis medication in prevention and treatment. It is prescribed in high doses otherwise resistance to the drug quickly develops. The illness becomes more severe and the patients can easily infect others. It can cost up to $20,000 to restart the treatment after it has been suspended.

In Poland, there are eight thousand people who suffer from tuberculosis, most of them in the industrial region of Silesia. Their treatment requires taking Isoniazid.

Unfortunately, the medicine is no longer available in pharmacies and hospitals. Polish pharmaceutical company Jelfa ceased production of the medicine because it was unprofitable, claims a pulmonologist Prof. Kazimierz Roszkowski.

No substitute medicine for Isoniazid has been registered in Poland. The Ministry of Health and the Main Pharmaceutical Inspectorate want to import Nidrazid, an anti TB medicine, from the Czech Republic. Yet, as the drug does not have a Polish certificate, it cannot be refunded.

Nidrazid costs 60 zlotys (19 USD), which for tuberculosis patients, mainly from a lower socio-economic class, is a large sum. In Poland, health code guarantees that medical treatment for TB is free and Polish patients right to be provided care for the disease is protected by law. (mg/mmj)

Source: Gazeta Wyborcza