“India can help the world eliminate tuberculosis” was the confident reply of recently appointed WHO Deputy Director-General, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, when asked about how WHO can help India eliminate tuberculosis. The health ministry has recently approved a new drug Delamanid for treatment of MDR-TB and XDR-TB. This approval is certainly a step forward towards this goal. Owing to rising number of MDR-TB and XDR-TB cases in India, the health ministry will introduce a new drug Delamanid in a controlled manner.
Delamanid which is in its phase 3 clinical trials, has been given approval by a technical group on tuberculosis in the ministry. The drug will be made available in 3-4 months. This decision was taken owing to the need of more than one drug for treatment of TB because of increasing drug resistance in country. This bactericidal drug will be included in the Revised National TB…
