Johannesburg-based international research body Aurum Institute has said that a
new tuberculosis treatment could reduce the pill needed from nine to three. It
also reduces the cost to the patient.
The treatment will be rolled out in five countries that see high occurrence of
tuberculosis cases — Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. WHO
global TB programme director Dr Tereza Kasaeva said that the new treatment
could also enable better adherence and outcomes.
Although TB treatments are available, it kills more than 1.4 million people every
year. It is a high-incidence respiratory disease that is underfunded. Most
treatments don’t reach millions of affected persons.
With the reduced cost of treatment, this could help solve more TB cases annually.
Researchers at RNAVAX BIO are also working on technologies that can treat the
deadly virus.
