The Ministry of Health will be utilizing new drugs in its fight against the bacterial disease tuberculosis (TB).
Director of the TB Programme at the Ministry of Health, Dr Jeetendra Mohanlall speaking on the
ministry’s latest edition of its ‘Health Matters’ show, disclosed that a new plan will soon be in place to treat TB patients.
Currently, patients are being administered their pills through the Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) strategy. This strategy is used to ensure that TB patients adhere to and can tolerate the prescribed treatment. A healthcare worker watches the TB patient swallow each dose of the prescribed drugs for six months.
According to the Department of Public Information (DPI), the new regimen that will soon be introduced consists of the use of rifapentine and moxifloxacin.
Dr Mohanlall said “And you can achieve the same as the six months of therapy with just treatment for four months. So, we are hoping to introduce that regimen sometime this year,”
With the use of this new treatment, the co-infection rate with other diseases such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) will also decrease.
DPI said that it also decreases the burdens of having patients being monitored on how they take their pills and the time period in which they do.
“Over the years we have managed to drop the burden of HIV co-infection with a lot of prevention. And we still need to do more as it pertains to prevention,” he noted.
Dr. Mohanlall also spoke on plans to introduce new medications for latent TB infection, which refers to TB germs that are dormant and non-transmissible.
He said the ministry has acquired a combination pill containing rifapentine and isoniazid, which will soon be incorporated into treatment protocols.
Just like the others, this will also reduce the intake of pills. These pills will be given to the patients once a week for 12 weeks. Currently, to treat latent TB infection, patients are using only the isoniazid pill on a daily basis.
Upon implementation of these strategies, patients will see a reduction in pill intake and treatment duration, enabling them to manage their condition more efficiently, DPI said. Dr. Mohanlall emphasised that, similar to the existing approaches, this new regimen will streamline pill consumption. Patients will receive a once-weekly dosage of these combination pills over a period of 12 weeks, marking a notable improvement over the current daily administration of isoniazid pills for latent TB infection.
