A new treatment for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis can cure 80 percent of sufferers, according to a trial hailed Monday as a “game changer” in the fight against the global killer.
Doctors in Belarus — a country with one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the world — spent months treating patients with a new drug, bedaquiline, alongside other antibiotics.
The results, seen exclusively by AFP, were startling: Of the 181 patients given the new drug, 168 people completed the course and 144 were totally cured.
The World Health Organization says currently only 55 percent of people with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are successfully treated.
The Belarus trial cure rate — 80 percent — was largely replicated in bedaquiline trials in other countries in eastern Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia, according to abstracts seen by AFP, due to be unveiled at a major tuberculosis conference later this week.
“The results from this study confirm… that newer drugs like bedaquiline can cure and are game changers for people living with multidrug-resistant and extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis,” Paula Fujiwara, scientific director of The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease who was not involved in the research, told AFP. READ MORE
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