The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued new guidelines to improve the treatment of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
According to the agency in a statement released on Wednesday, it recommended shifting to fully oral regimens to treat people with MDR-TB, saying, “This new treatment course is more effective and is less likely to provoke adverse side effects.”
Tuberculosis (TB) is contagious and airborne. It is spread through the air from one person to another. The TB bacteria are put into the air when a person with the disease of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, speaks, or sings. People nearby may breathe in these bacteria and become infected.
However, WHO in its new guideline recommended accountability framework to coordinate actions across sectors with active monitoring of patient pathways in accessing care and providing support to help infection control and preventive treatment for latent TB infection.
The recommendations are part of a larger package of actions designed to help countries increase the pace of progress to end TB and released in advance of World TB Day, WHO said. The World TB Day is observed March 24 each year.
The day is set aside to create public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of the disease. The theme of this year’s World TB Day, “It’s time to end TB.”
WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom, said the body was highlighting the urgent need to translate commitments made at the 2018 UN High-Level Meeting on TB into actions that ensure everyone who needed TB care could get it.
He said since 2000, 54 million had been treated, and TB deaths fell by one third, but 10 million people still fell ill with TB every year, with too many missing on vital care. TB remains the world’s deadliest infectious killer disease.
“This is a set of pragmatic actions that countries can use to accelerate progress and act on the high-level commitments made in the first-ever UN High Level Meeting on TB last September,” said Tereza Kasaeva, director WHO’s Global TB Programme.
Nigeria is among 14 countries with the highest burden for TB, TB/HIV and MDR-TB, it ranked seventh among the 30 high TB burden countries and second in Africa. Every hour 47 Nigerians develop active TB, seven of whom are children, according to the 2017 global TB report.
Funding gap, high tuberculosis burden and rising incidence of multi drug resistance are among factors hindering Nigeria’s fight against TB, leading to 420 Nigerian deaths daily.
Currently, there is no effective vaccine to prevent TB and about 104,904 cases were notified in 2017 out of the estimated 420, 000 huge TB cases in Nigeria.
