Anti-TB dose ‘BPaL’ gets global approval
Small anti-tuberculosis dose Anti-TB dose ‘BPaL’ has received global approval if a recent test is ‘positive’.
A short-term treatment of six months called BPaL has shown favorable results in patients with tuberculosis (TB).
BPaL is a 6-monthly dosed treatment. It is an oral drug and is a three-drug dosage.
It is used to treat patients suffering from highly drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis.
BPaL is a combination of three new antibiotics. These three medicines are: bedaquiline, pretomanid, and linezolid.
TB Alliance’s BPaL drug has reduced the treatment time of tuberculosis from 18 months to 6 months. Also, the reported success rate is 90%. This rate can prove to be important in the eradication of tuberculosis. (The TB Alliance is a non-profit organization.)
Drug-resistant tuberculosis occurs when bacteria develop resistance to the drugs used to treat tuberculosis.
Types of drug resistant tuberculosis
- Mono-resistance: Resistance to first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs only.
- Poly-resistance: Resistance to more than one first-line anti-tuberculosis drug excluding isoniazid and rifampicin drugs.
- Multi-drug resistance (MDR): Develops resistance to at least both isoniazid and rifampicin.
- Extended drug resistance (XDR): Resistance against any fluoroquinolone other than MDR, as well as resistance against at least one of the three second-line injectable drugs (capreomycin, kanamycin and amikacin).
- Rifampicin resistance (RR): Resistance to rifampicin drug in the form of single-resistance, multiple-resistance, MDR or XDR.
Tuberculosis (TB)
- Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most often affects the lungs. It can also affect other organs.
- Most common drugs used to treat tuberculosis include isoniazid, rifampin, ethambutol, pyrazinamide, etc.
- BCG is currently the only licensed vaccine available for the prevention of tuberculosis.
Source- The Hindu
