MUMBAI: Amitabh Bachchan has revealed that he had contracted tuberculosis in 2000, just when he had begun shooting for Kaun Banega Crorepati.
Speaking at a function to launch a TB awareness campaign, Bachchan said, “I was a TB patient years ago. I have never spoken about it on a public platform, but now is the time. If it could happen to me, it can happen to anyone. I was weak and I had lost appetite. Blood tests revealed that I had TB.”
He is roped in as a brand ambassador for the campaign and is hopeful he would bring the same positive difference to the TB campaign that he brought to the polio awareness drive, Times of India reported.
He added that he underwent treatment for a year. “I was in a good environment and I was fortunate enough to get healthy food. Sometimes, we do get exposed to the disease at certain places. It didn’t take me long to agree to be brand ambassador for this campaign,” he said.
“Earlier, TB patients were sent to sanitariums but now the best treatment is available here,” he said, emphasising that treatment should be started as early as possible. Bachchan has acted in two minute-long TV advertisements, in which he plays a taxi driver and a restaurant manager and emphasises getting a sputum test done if one has been suffering from a cough for more than two weeks. The actor has also given a voice-over to radio jingles and he will be the face on the TB awareness posters too, the report concludes.
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