Nature: good news! The U.S. government approved the new treatment of XDR-TB!

August 17, 2019 / BIOON / - the US Food and Drug Administration approved a drug therapy for the treatment of extreme forms of multi drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) Nearly 90% of XDR patients who received this treatment recovered in six months of clinical trials At present, the success rate of drug programs used to treat XDR tuberculosis is about 34% One of the drugs, pretomanid, is the third new TB drug approved in the world in nearly 50 years Photo source: Subhash Sharma Zuma, approved August 14, was developed by the tuberculosis alliance, a non-profit research organization in New York City, which consists of pretomanid and two other drugs, bedaquiline and linezolid According to the data of the World Health Organization (who), about 500000 people are diagnosed with MDR-TB every year in the world, and about 8.5% of them have XDR TB Common TB treatments don't work with XDR TB, so people with this extreme form of TB need at least a year and a half to cure, taking eight drugs at the same time Even so, up to two-thirds of people die from XDR, the World Health Organization says Reference: treatment for extreme drug resistant tuberculosis wins US government approval