HEALTH-INDIA: Dominique Lapierre and NGO Rein in TB in Bengal

By Sujoy Dhar Reprint | | Print |

Sujoy Dhar

CALCUTTA, Jul 21 1999 (IPS) - It was the calamitous monsoon of 1978 in West Bengal. The fury of the annual floods in the eastern Indian state had never been so savage and rendered so many people homeless.

During the relief operations in one of the worst-hit villages, a social worker was amazed to see a foreigner swimming in the flood waters to reach aid to the marooned survivors.

M.A. Wohab, a former far left Naxalite-revolutionary turned social worker and the Swiss-born Catholic missionary Brother Gaston who worked among the poor in the area soon became good friends.

The outcome of that chance meeting was an economic survey among ‘bidi’ makers or those who roll the indigenous cigarettes in the villages under Wohab’s care, in the course of which it was discovered that an overwhelming majority were infected with TB or the tuberculosis bacilli.

Wohab’s focus soon shifted and then began a tireless effort to fight the disease. Twenty years later, the anti-TB crusade is not over but Wohab proudly says that the organisation he founded in 1982 has almost eradicated TB in the deltaic region of West Bengal state.

Deep inside the dense mangrove forests of the Sundarban islands and other poverty-stricken villages in the South 24 Parganas district that government workers seldom visited, his Southern Health Improvement Society (SHIS) has forced TB to beat a retreat with the Directly Observed Treatment, Short course (DOTS) strategy promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Curing tuberculosis in these remote island villages is no mean achievement considering the fact that the disease in the country as per India government estimates continues to kill 350,000 people annually.

And this despite an ongoing WHO-backed programme, funded by the World Bank which has put in 200 million dollars for the next five years since 1998. Yet B. Mitra, superintendent of the Bengal Tuberculosis Association says the government has suspended all financial aid to organisations like his.

Independent of the government, SHIS has gone from success to success. Of the 1,912 cases under it in 1997-98, 1,870 were cured while the rest were reported as drop-outs – figures are corroborated by the state health department. Today in half of the 2,000 villages under their programme, there is no TB patient.

“It does not mean that tuberculosis will not strike people of these villages, but it can be claimed that we have brought the disease under control,” says Wohab. The number of patients has dropped in this region from 25,000 cases to 2,500 annually.

The number of deaths has also decreased substantially. The success of SHIS has also drawn the attention of the World bank which has promised to sanction 100,000 dollar loan to the NGO for the implementation of various health care projects.

When it started out, the organisation had only two rupees in its account. Since 1986 it has a celebrity fund-raiser French writer, Dominique Lapierre who has donated part of his royalties from books, the most famous in India being ‘City of Joy’ on Calcutta.

“Dominique Lapierre has donated from his book royalties of nearly 3 crore rupees (over 715,000 dollars) till date,” Wohab said.

The author has an enduring relationship with the area. “I come to this area every year along with my wife to take my annual dose of vitamin. It’s a pilgrimage for me,” he said. His latest book, ‘A Thousand Sons’ was launched on the banks of a Bengal river in the presence of thousands of cured TB patients.

Proceeds from Lapierre’s international best-sellers like ‘City of Joy’ and ‘Beyond Love’ and other individual contributions from various European countries enabled the writer to launch mobile boat dispensaries, equipped with all the diagnostic equipment like x-ray machines.

“Thanks to the royalties of my book and the contributions of thousands of my readers and thanks to all the people who responded to my appeal, I have been able to eradicate tuberculosis in more than 1,200 villages,” Lapierre said.

SHIS has succeeded where the government agencies have failed because in every village it has formed groups of leaders to pay periodic visits to the mud hovels of the patients to solve the problem of high drop-out rate among the patients and consequent low success rate.

The villagers are taken into confidence and persuaded to come

to the clinics with an adult member of the family and explained the need for taking medicines regularly and the fatal consequences of negligence because of drug resistance.

“Our volunteers have become a part of the joys and sorrows of these people and at times we also take up the responsibility of rehabilitating them economically,” said Wohab.

Earlier this year a health fair organised by SHIS at Bhangar Village brought together thousands of former TB patients. Said a grateful Tamanna Bibi, “We hardly have one square meal a day, there was no question of paying for medicines or undergoing sustained treatment.

“But because of the ‘babus’ (SHIS volunteers) and Dominique ‘dada’ and ‘didi’ (Lapierre’s wife) today I have regained health and can work for a living.”