SA first to roll out new drug to treat resistant TB
SOUTH Africa’s Department of Health became the first in the world to announce the rolling out of a new and more tolerable drug to fight multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
It was announced that the new drug‚ bedaquiline‚ would replace current treatment regimens for adolescents and adults from the start of their treatment.
Dr Norbert Njeka‚ a director in the department‚ confirmed the mass scale-up.
Njeka said those provinces not yet equipped for the rollout would be capacitated to do so.
South Africa being the first country to take this decision arose from the fact that it had been the first country to see the mass benefits of the new drug, which until now had been rolled out in small pockets across the country.
But the scale-up was likely to reduce the burden of the disease exponentially, he said.
Each year‚ about half-a-million people contract MDR-TB across the globe‚ and South Africa carries a high burden with 19 000 of those.
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement it applauded the South African health department for being the “first country in the world to take this bold step aimed at scaling up access to an effective new drug‚ making MDR-TB treatment more tolerable‚ and reducing the devastating impact of side effects caused by the injectable agents”.
Known side effects of the injectable include kidney failure and hearing loss‚ while the drug has only proven effective in 50% of cases.
“Experience with bedaquiline demonstrates improved clinical outcomes in people living with MDR-TB‚ and initial evidence shows that it can be safely and effectively used in place of the toxic injectable‚” Dr Anja Reuter‚ of Doctors Without Borders‚ said.
Reuter is stationed in Khayelitsha, where the organisation has run a TB treatment programme for 11 years.
“There is no question we should be offering people the best options we have for more effective and less toxic treatment‚ but progress on this agenda has to date been slow in most countries,” she said. –