TB: A 145;short, sweet146; solution

The Tuberculosis Research Centre of the Indian Council of Medical Research IMCR Chennai has successfully conducted a project aimed at shor...

The Tuberculosis Research Centre of the Indian Council of Medical Research IMCR Chennai has successfully conducted a project aimed at shortening the period of TB treatment.

With this, the government hopes to have stumbled upon an almost perfect solution to eradicate the fatal disease.

India has the highest prevalence of TB in the world, afflicting more than 20 million people in the country. 8216;8216;It is a real breakthrough. If we can shorten the span of treatment, it will solve half of our problems,8217;8217; said an official at the ICMR.

Tuberculosis treatment involves a six-month period of administering a combination of drugs, including Rifampicin, Pyrazinamide and Ethambutol.

If the treatment is stopped midway, the patient develops resistance to these drugs that invariably leads to multi-drug resistant TB, which is even more difficult to treat.

8216;8216;After three weeks of treatment, patient starts feeling better, which leads to the belief that one is cured of TB and patients drop out of treatment.

The cost factor also adds to the dropout rate,8217;8217; said Dr A.B. Dey of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences AIIMS.

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But with the new combination that researchers have found, doctors would now be able to shorten the treatment period from six months to three months and also limit chances of a relapse.

The new combination, according to the TRC study published in the latest edition of Indian Journal of Tuberculosis, involves administration of Ofloxacin, Isoniazid, Rifampicin and Pyrazinamide orally for a period of three months.

During the study, conducted on a total of 360 patients, 88 patients were administered the drug in four groups.

In all the four groups, 98 to 99 per cent patients showed negative culture of the TB pathogen by the end of the treatment. The success rate was as high as 99 per cent.

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However, it would take some time for this regimen to be introduced in the TB eradication programme in India.

8216;8216;The new combination of drugs have to be administered every day. The emphasis is to reduce the dosage to thrice a week. We8217;ll have to work towards that. That way, we would ensure strict compliance. We are very hopeful,8217;8217; said an official at the ICMR.