New drug a relief for TB treatment
BY VERAH OKEYO
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Kenya is one of the five countries that will roll out a new tuberculosis regimen, which will reduce the treatment period to prevent TB from as long as three years to just three months.
Aurum Institute, one of the partners that participate in the making of the drug, announced that the new regimen consists of three months of rifapentine and isoniazid treatment.
Dr Elizabeth Onyango, the head of the National Tuberculosis Leprosy and Lung Disease Programme at the Ministry of Health said they were “still working on adopting the regimen”.
The previous standard of care — isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) — was long and complex, with people required to take a pill daily for half a year to three years.
During this first phase, the regimen will be given to those with the highest risk of progressing from TB infection to TB disease. These vulnerable people include people with HIV and children under the age of five.
The Health ministry estimates that 1.8 million people have HIV and studies show that HIV positive people are 20 to 37 times more likely to move from latent to active TB than those without the viral infection.
Latent TB is the disease when it is dormant in the body. Studies estimate that people with latent TB are 15 to 25 per cent of the world’s population. At the latent stage, people have no symptoms, are not contagious and most of them don’t know they are infected.
However, if left untreated, latent infection can develop into active TB which is the form that makes people sick and is capable of being transmitted from one person to another.
The new 3HP regimen, taken only once a week for 12 weeks, has been touted to have benefits for Kenya alongside Cambodia, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe. “Evidence shows that it’s as effective as IPT in preventing progression to active TB disease, has fewer side effects, more patients complete the regimen and is easier for patients to take,” said the Aurum Institute in a statement.
Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the Global TB programme at the World Health Organization, praised the regimen. “It provides more options for those at highest risk of developing active TB,” said Dr Kasaeva.
