The fight against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Today is World Tuberculosis Day. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) affects about 480.000 people worldwide. Only 50% of these patients are treated successfully. But there is hope. Promising new drugs and shorter MDR-TB treatments are in the pipeline and may lead to an increase in the cure rate.

Bharathi Ghanashyam, journalist-in-residence at the ITM, has published the article 'Changing the game for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis' about this issue in The Lancet. She expands on a study by ITM scientist Armand Van Deun and his colleagues. They developed a treatment programme for MDR-TB of only nine months.