Sipokazi Fokazi

SOUTH Africa will be one of the countries that proves whether killer tuberculosis and difficult-to-treat TB can be treated in significantly shorter periods – with a clinical trial set to start in the country this month.

Today the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), which has initiated the pivotal drug trial called SimpliciTB, announced that it could see drug-sensitive TB treated in four months, and killer multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB treated in six months instead of 18 months.

SimpliciTB will test the efficacy of the four-drug BPaMZ regimen on both drug-sensitive TB and MDR TB using the potent TB drugs bedaquiline, pretomanid, moxifloxacin and pyrazinamide.

In 2014, South Africa approved the use of bedaquiline for the national TB programme, and it is being used in the treatment of drug-resistant TB including MDR.

Pretomanid is a new, experimental drug that has been evaluated in a number of clinical trials.

Outcomes of the latest study will be compared against the standard six-month treatment regimen comprising the drugs isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide and ethambutol to determine whether BPaMZ can shorten the duration of therapy for drug-sensitive TB by a third. The trial will also assess BPaMZ’s potential to treat MDR TB in six months.

The first patients have been enrolled at the National Centre for