New tuberculosis treatment could save millions of lives

Scientists from the University of St Andrews reveal a new tuberculosis (TB) therapeutics that could shorten the treatment of the disease by up to two months, potentially saving millions of lives.

Dr. Muge Cevik delivered the results of the worldwide TB Alliance's SimpliciTB clinical trial at the 30th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Seattle on Monday, February 20.

Tuberculosis causes about 1 million deaths every year. To change this and save lives, new tools and new treatments are required. Active TB must be treated with a combination of drugs; the most drug-sensitive forms of TB require at least four months of treatment using four anti-TB drugs. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) an estimated 1.6 million people died of TB in 2021, although the precise numbers are not known, and recent research suggests that TB could have killed many more people.

The international SimpliciTB trial was conducted to evaluate the BPaMZ regimen, consisting of bedaquiline (B), pretomanid (Pa), moxifloxacin (M), and pyrazinamide (Z). This combination previously showed high efficacy and treatment shortening potential in both preclinical evaluations and an early-stage clinical study in drug resistant patients.

As presented at CROI, the results of the trial showed that the BPaMZ regimen was highly potent against the TB bacteria, meeting its primary endpoint with DS-TB participants 2.93 times more likely to culture convert by week eight. However, the four-month experimental BPaMZ regimen did not meet the secondary endpoint of noninferiority in percent favorable outcomes compared to six months of HRZE in DS-TB. This was due to adherence challenges, with approximately 10% of patients on the BPaMZ arms discontinuing treatment due to side effects.

Shorter time to resolve means fewer infections and less hassel for all involved. All the drugs are currently available, but several are pretty expensive.

TB takes a long time to cure.

1 posted on 02/21/2023 8:31:48 PM PST by ConservativeMind

I thought the agenda was to kill everyone?

So confused

2 posted on 02/21/2023 8:47:33 PM PST by algore

No, but open borders have even rise to tuberculosis, so they had to come up with something.

3 posted on 02/22/2023 4:14:05 AM PST by Clutch Martin ("The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." )

Indeed and many other diseases they let slid by because of no place to keep them.

FJB

4 posted on 02/22/2023 9:24:32 AM PST by Vaduz (LAWYERS )

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