A new treatment for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis can
cure more than 90 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 were totally cured.
The World Health Organization says currently only 55 percent of
people with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are successfully treated. The
Belarus trial success rate - 93 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.
Lead researcher Alena Skrahina, from the Republican Research and
Practical Centre for Pulmonology and TB in Minsk, called the bedaquiline
results “promising”.
“Generally, our study confirms the effectiveness of bedaquiline
in previous clinical trials, and does not confirm the concerns about safety
problems,” she told AFP.
Tuberculosis killed at least 1.7 million
people in 2017, according to the WHO, making the airborne infection the world’s
deadliest infectious disease.
It kills more than three times as many
people as malaria every year and is responsible for the majority of HIV/AIDS
deaths.
Despite the huge death toll,
tuberculosis receives roughly a tenth of the global research funding that goes
to HIV/AIDS.
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is
immune to two of the most common antibacterial drugs used to treat the disease.
Experts believe it is spreading
worldwide due to poor handling of tuberculosis cases.
Unlike other global killers such as HIV,
tuberculosis is curable - but currently only under a strict six-month
supervised regimen involving multiple daily drug doses.
In many parts of the world medications
are incorrectly stored, or simply run out before the treatment has finished,
leading to greater drug resistance, especially in crowded settings such as
prison and hospitals.
The WHO says variants of
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis have been reported in at least 117 countries
around the world.
Unlike many antibiotics, bedaquiline
doesn’t attack the bacteria directly and instead targets the enzymes that the
disease relies on for its energy.
All of the patients in the study
experienced side effects but these were less severe than previously thought.
Last month UN member states agreed a
global plan to fight tuberculosis and to facilitate cheaper access to vital
drugs.
On the sidelines of the General Assembly
in New York, world leaders pledged $13 billion annually to end the tuberculosis
epidemic, with a further $2 billion to fund research - up from $700 million
currently.
Unlike the battle against HIV, which has
received high-profile celebrity backing, tuberculosis is often seen as a
historic affliction effecting only remote and undeveloped parts of the world.
Scientists and policymakers gather this
week in The Hague for a global conference on lung health, where they are
expected to warn that tuberculosis could spread through richer nations
currently struggling with non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and
obesity.
India alone accounts for a quarter of
all tuberculosis cases, and there are hopes that new, cheaper drugs could help
strangle the spread of the disease if rolled out worldwide.
“We urgently need more affordable drugs
like bedaquiline if we are to seriously make a dent in curing the estimated
600,000 people falling sick to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis each year and
avoiding nearly a quarter of a million deaths,” said Fujiwara.
