New guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO) has created new hope for the roughly 480,000 people suffering from drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Currently tuberculosis can involve a lengthy process to treat with many pills and injections lasting as long as two years. However, will side-effects and no guaruntee off success, many people do not finish their course of treatment. As a result, cure rates are as low as 50 percent according to the BBC. However, WHO’s new guidelines will help to cut this arduous process down to create shorter, more manageable treatment times.
According to WHO, the new treatment times will take 9-12 months with a much cheaper price tag at $1000 per patient versus the current price of $2400. The new regime is currently recommended for patients diagnosed with uncomplicated MDR-TB which means they have the disease and is less resistant to the drugs.
WHO undertook studies involving 1200 patients with uncomplicated MDR-TB in ten different countries and are currently undergoing randomised controlled clinical trials to back up further the benefits to this shorter regime.
“This is a critical step forward in tackling the MDR-TB public health crisis,” Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme, said in the statement. “The new WHO recommendations offer hope to hundreds of thousands of MDR-TB patients who can now benefit from a test that quickly identifies eligibility for the shorter regimen, and then complete treatment in half the time and at nearly half the cost.”
Testing for MDR-TB will also be made quicker – currently patients receiving results will need to wait three months whereas the new plan will have patients only waiting two days.
The International Union against TB and Lung Disease and Medecins Sans Frontieres have also been involved in the trials held in Bangladesh and Africa and has hailed the new plans as “an historic moment.”