Health: A look at Tuberculosis, the global epidemic

Tuberculosis or TB typically attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body It is spread through the air when people who have an active TB infection cough sneeze or otherwise transmit respiratory fluids through the air Most infections do not have symptoms known as latent tuberculosis About one in ten latent infections eventually progresses to active disease which if left untreated kills more than 50 of those so infectedDiscoveryCelebrated German physician and pioneering microbiologist Robert Kochs played a key role in identifying Tuberculosis bacteria thanks in part to his groundbreaking research work Koch published his findings on tuberculosis in 1882 in which he reported the causative agent of the disease to be the slowgrowing Mycobacterium tuberculosis He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1905 for his effortsTuberculosis in IndiaAlthough treatment for TB is freely available and highly effective TB continues to kill hundreds of thousands of people every year in India and vast numbers of cases go undetected Public TB clinics are better equipped to quickly diagnose and begin treatment for the disease but patients are often reluctant to utilize them Researchers say that for better TB tests to make a major difference they must be made available to the private health care providers where patients first seek care The new test for TB Xpert MTBRIF could diagnose TB in 90 minutes capture 70 percent of cases missed by microscopy and could also determine if the strain was resistant to rifampin the most important antiTB drug India has begun rolling out this new technology but since Xpert MTBRIF was much more expensive than traditional tests it was currently being implemented mainly in public clinics to test HIVpositive patients who might also have TB or those at high risk of having multidrugresistant tuberculosis MDRTBDaily fixed dose is mandatory say expertsMany health experts have urged the Indian government to swiftly implement revised TB treatment regimes Although experts welcomed reports that the Central TB Division will soon switch from intermittent three times in aweek to daily treatment for drug sensitive TB as part of Directly Observed Treatment DOTS they said that more concrete steps needed to be taken towards implementing the recommended policy changesEradication of Tuberculosis a possibilityNew drug can enable shortened treatment Data from a phase 2b clinical trial has shown that a new TB tuberculosis drug regimen eliminated more bacteria from sputum than standard therapy and did so at a faster rate PaMZ is a threedrug regimen comprising two candidate drugs that are not yet licensed for use against TB If successful in the phase 3 trial the PaMZ regimen would eliminate the need for injectable drugs and reduce the cost of MDRTB therapy by more than 90 percentHope for patients with drugresistant TB Researchers led by an Indianorigin scientist have developed a new drug that may serve as a treatment against multidrug resistant tuberculosis a form of the disease that cannot be cured with conventional therapies The researchers also performed extensive studies to determine if their newly developed compound had an appropriately long halflife and could be cleared from the body through normal biochemical mechanisms