Statement by Tom Evans, MD
Chief Scientific Officer, Aeras

Makers of an investigational tuberculosis drug that has been urged for “compassionate use” approval in South Africa have applied to the European Medicines Agency to market the medicine as part of a combination therapy for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

If approved, bedaquiline could be one of the first drugs with a new mechanism of action for TB in more than 40 years and one of the first ever to be specifically indicated for MDR-TB.

The Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease has published a guideline on TB and HIV integration titled Implementing Collaborative TB-HIV Activities: A Programmatic Guide. It is available here:
http://www.tbonline.info/archive/document/108/

An estimated one-third of TB infections in the Southern African region are linked to mining activities. 

Nearly half of tuberculosis patients studied in eight countries are resistant to at least one second-line drug and some 7% of cases are extensively drug-resistant.

The promising experimental tuberculosis (TB) drug delamanid does not interact with the widely used antiretrovirals tenofovir (Viread) and lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra) in ways likely to cause clinical problems, researchers reported at the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) last month in Washington, DC.

The use of newer drugs, a greater number of effective drugs, and a longer treatment regimen may be associated with improved survival of patients with multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

The leading cause of death in seven SA prisons in 2010 was tuberculosis, but the programme to control the spread of the disease in prisons is "virtually non-existent", the Constitutional Court heard y

The courts have found that the state is responsible for the spread of tuberculosis in prisons but created no room to compensate those infected.