New TB treatment breakthroughs must reach those in-need without delay

Shobha Shukla – CNS
Contd from last Saturday
That is why we need a different combination of medicines (to which the bacteria are sensitive) to treat the disease. Choice of medicines to treat is limited, treatment is long, risk of severe illness and dying is high, and a host of other issues, like drug toxicity, side effects, and even post-treatment disabilities at times, are other challenges. But there is good news too.
Thanks to rigorous scientific research, we have shorter, safer, and more effective therapies for treating drug-resistant TB now.
Watershed moment in TB treatment science
The final phase-3 results of the ZeNix study were published in New England Journal of Medicine which show that BPaL treatment regimen consisting of three medicines - Bedaquiline, Pretomanid, and Linezolid - is not only highly effective against drug-resistant forms of TB, but this high effectiveness can also be maintained with reduction in dosing and/or duration of Linezolid.
(To be contd)