With experts pressing the panic button over the rate at which the disease is spreading, Calcutta and Howrah will observe World Tuberculosis Day on Thursday.

?TB cases are on the rise,? said Manish Pradhan, honorary general secretary of Bengal Tuberculosis Association (BTA). Stating that negligence on the part of the government, doctors and patients is contributing to the predicament, Pradhan said: ?Because of this negligence, TB is assuming an alarming proportion. Irregular drug use has resulted in fatal multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB strains.?

The doctor stressed that the full course of the TB drug should be taken without any gap. ?In many cases, owing to lack of knowledge, patients stop taking drugs after the primary symptoms are gone. Doctors sometimes don?t pressure them to take the full course.?

In agreement with Pradhan, Howrah chief medical officer of health Sankar Saha spoke of the fatal consequences of stopping the drugs before the full course is over. ?MDR strains are a major problem for us. It gives the disease a fatal characteristic.?

Pradhan criticised the direct observation and treatment (DOT) programme of the government.

?In many cases, this programme is doing more harm than good,? Pradhan said.

?It is not judicious to stick to the WHO guideline, where the doses of the drug are concerned,? he added. ?The doses should be adjusted according to the patient?s body weight. If you give a 30-kg patient a dose meant for a 60-kg one, there will be severe reactions, like vomiting, and the patient will stop taking the medicine. This, too, can cause the MDR strain in that patient.?

Thirty per cent of the patients stop taking the drug before the course is complete, Pradhan added.

To mark World Tuberculosis Day, the BTA will lay the foundation stone of a TB research unit. There will also be a seminar on chest diseases and a quiz contest at Indira Ray Memorial Hall on Thursday.

The Howrah administration has launched a drive against the disease to mark the day.