- The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved new oral three-drug regimen for the extensively-drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
- The treatment involves Pretomanid tablets in combination with bedaquiline and linezolid, collectively referred to as the BPaL regimen. It has an efficacy rate of 90%. Pretomanid was developed by TB Alliance, a not-for-profit organisation.
- Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious airborne bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It most commonly affects the lungs but can also damage other parts of the body.
- There are two TB-related conditions: a) Latent TB – the bacteria remain in the body in an inactive state. They cause no symptoms and are not contagious, but they can become active and b) Active TB – the bacteria do cause symptoms and can be transmitted to others.
- When TB infection becomes resistant to the first line of treatment — isoniazid and rifampicin, it is called Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Two major reasons for prevalence of MDR TB are: a) mismanagement of TB treatment (incomplete and incorrect treatment) and b) person to person transmission.
- Extensively-drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is a more serious form of MDR TB. It happens when the infection becomes resistant even to the second-line treatment. It has a mortality rate of 60%.
- According to 2018 WHO TB update, there are 1, 14,237 MDR-TB patients globally, of which more than 8,000 are XDR-TB. India has 26,966 MDR-TB patients, the highest in the world, while there are 2,130 XDR-TB patients.
