Though the total number of people with XDR-TB and treatment intolerant or non-responsive MDR-TB who will require the new anti-TB drug Pretomanid may not be high, these are people who have very little alternative treatment options that are both safe and efficacious. Unlike in the case of bedaquiline, pretomanid might become affordable. The anti-tuberculosis drug … Continue reading Pretomanid: XDR-TB may soon become easily treatable
XDR-TB
Explainer: What makes the new drug-resistant TB medicine Pretomanid promising
When used in combination with bedaquiline and linezolid, the newly approved pretomanid drug for MDR-TB and XDR-TB had an overall treatment success rate of about 90%. Besides better effectiveness, the duration of treatment is just six months. Treating drug-resistant tuberculosis — multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) — got a shot in the … Continue reading Explainer: What makes the new drug-resistant TB medicine Pretomanid promising
IISc researchers’ quest to make a common antibiotic more effective against TB
Bacteria develop resistance against a drug only when they are exposed to it or when the drug is misused. But now, a team of researchers from India has found whether and how drug resistance can develop against a candidate drug called Augmentin even before the drug is approved for treating patients with drug-resistant TB. The … Continue reading IISc researchers’ quest to make a common antibiotic more effective against TB
Breaking the drug-resistant TB transmission cycle important
Nearly two months after the Health Ministry set a highly ambitious target of working towards elimination of tuberculosis by 2025, a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases indicates that India’s TB crisis is all set to snowball by 2040 when one in 10 cases could be drug-resistant. What is even more alarming is that the increased … Continue reading Breaking the drug-resistant TB transmission cycle important
Working towards personalised TB treatment
Three major global research centres in India will receive funding coming out of collaboration between the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Department for Biotechnology (DBT), India. The Department for Biotechnology will match the funding provided by UK through MRC and Newton Fund. The Chennai-based National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) will get … Continue reading Working towards personalised TB treatment
Editorial: An ominous situation
That the medicine chest is bereft of effective new drugs to fight the extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) strain has once again become frighteningly clear. According to a study published recently in The Lancet, while only 16 per cent (17 of the 107) of a South African patient cohort had either treatment cure or completion at … Continue reading Editorial: An ominous situation
‘Long-term outcomes in South African patients with XDR-TB poor’
Long-term outcomes in South African patients who have extremely-drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) are “poor” immaterial of HIV status, notes a paper published on January 17 in The Lancet . Despite treatment outcomes being poor, “substantial number” of XDR-TB patients who were still infected were discharged from hospitals in spite of failing treatment. With the median … Continue reading ‘Long-term outcomes in South African patients with XDR-TB poor’
TB: ‘There is a clearly higher risk of mortality in children of 0-4 years’
With 8.6 million people across the world developing tuberculosis in 2012 and nearly 1.3 million succumbing to the disease, and with the number of people with multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extremely-drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) increasing every year, the focus has been on increasing case-detection and improving treatment rates. In the process, no significant measures … Continue reading TB: ‘There is a clearly higher risk of mortality in children of 0-4 years’
Editorial: No time to lose
Published in The Hindu on march 20, 2008 If globally containing tuberculosis, the incidence of which is estimated to be growing at one per cent a year, is proving to be a big challenge, the spread of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) — caused by a bacterial strain that is resistant to at least two of … Continue reading Editorial: No time to lose
Editorial: A warning signal
Published in the Hindu on October 12, 2006 The discovery of a highly virulent strain — extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB)--in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, and presented last month at the XVI international AIDS conference in Toronto, has dramatically changed our perception of the way tuberculosis can create havoc for humanity. According to the … Continue reading Editorial: A warning signal
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