Developing New TB Drugs Shouldn’t Be a Moonshot
By Dan Klotz, March 26, 2015
Tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people every year. It is such a lethal disease that it requires patients to take a combination of four strong antibiotics for six months—18 months or more if the infection comes from a drug-resistant strain.
The drugs involved in TB treatment are old. The four in the first-line TB treatment have been around since before there were cell phones, personal computers, and photocopiers. These drugs were developed when Kennedy was president of the U.S.
We’ve been to the moon and back, thanks to President Kennedy, but there hasn’t been a well-funded scientific effort to end a disease that has plagued humanity for thousands of years. And now the current drugs are losing their effectiveness as TB strains resistant to these drugs proliferate.
The impact of TB on children is especially heartbreaking. It is often confused with many other diseases and conditions that imperil childhood, including pneumonia and malnutrition. Even though an estimated half a million children are diagnosed with the disease every year, there are no meds available that match the guidelines issued by the World Health Organization five years ago.
The tide may be turning, however. TB Alliance has launched two major clinical trials this year, looking at how new combinations of drugs could be used to treat several different forms of TB, including strains resistant to some of the commonly prescribed antibiotics used to treat the disease. Other current research includes the first safety and dosage trial for a TB drug in six years.
More progress is needed, but as another World TB Day comes and goes, we can start to see, perhaps, a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
