Rolling Out New Anti-Tuberculosis Drugs Without Diagnostic Capacity

Authors

Tara Ness
Le Hong Van
Ilze Petermane
Raquel Duarte
Christoph Lange
Dick Menzies
Daniela Maria Cirillo

Publication Date

6-1-2023

Journal

Breathe

DOI

10.1183/20734735.0084-2023

PMID

37492347

PMCID

PMC10365078

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

7-11-2023

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes

Abstract

Deaths from tuberculosis (TB) reached over 1.6 million in 2021 with 10.6 million people becoming ill. Multidrug-resistant TB, defined as the Mycobacterium tuberculosis organism having resistance to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, represented 3.9% of new TB cases and 18% of previously treated cases. While new drug regimens continue to be developed and introduced to improve treatment of drug-resistant forms of TB, diagnostic capability to identify drug resistance lags woefully behind. While significant mortality benefits exist for these newer drug regimens, implementing them without proper drug resistance diagnostic capacity could lead to development of more drug resistances and exhaust these new therapeutic tools. Moving forward, the roll-out of new TB drugs and regimens must be paired with implementation of diagnostics to ensure judicious use of resources and the best chance for improving TB worldwide.