The New Weapon Against TB

With India running against time to eliminate tuberculosis by 2025, a new drug regimen offers hope. But persistent shortages of even basic medications threaten to derail progress and fuel drug resistance

- SONALI ACHARJEE

For 67-year-old Faizan Khan, who used to work as a plumber in Mumbai suburb Thane, swallowing multiple pills for the treatment of tuberculosis was a living nightmare. But a friend of his had developed drug-resistant or DR-TB and succumbed to it after he could not cope with the extensive medication. And so Khan persevered with his own treatment.

Hope flared for Khan and others suffering like him in mid-August, as the Government of India approved the rollout of a new TB regimen. Of a shorter duration-six months-and comprising just three oral drugs, the BPaL line of treatment hopes to potentially improve patient compliance and hence reduce the risk associated with MDR (multi-drug resistant) TB. However, twice in less than a yearAugust 2023 and March 2024-there have been mass-scale reports of drug shortages for weeks. And halting treatment due to the unavailability of drugs increases the risk of TB becoming resistant to these drugs. So, what is the way out?

A Killer Bacterium