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Disease in the News: Tuberculosis Essay

Decent Essays

Disease in the News – Tuberculosis

HCS/245
June 25, 2013
Tynan Weed

Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, TB (tubercle bacillus) or MTB (mycobacterium tuberculosis) is a widespread, and in numerous cases fatal, communicable disease produced by a variety of forms of mycobacteria. The disease is distributed within the air when individuals who are infected with active TB infection sneeze, cough, or pass on breathing fluids throughout the air. Generally infections are asymptomatic, meaning they feel or show no symptoms, and dormant, but then again approximately one in ten dormant infections in the long run move on to the active disease. If left untouched, active TB is fatal to more than half of those infected.
The characteristic warning …show more content…

Despite the accessibility of inexpensive and successful treatment, tuberculosis still accounts for millions of cases of active disease and deaths worldwide. The disease unreasonably has an effect on the neediest persons in both high-income and developing countries. However, recent improvements in diagnostics, drugs, vaccines and enhanced implementation of present interventions have increased the outlooks for enhanced clinical care and global tuberculosis restriction.
Claims
Currently there are new drug classes that are in investigative trials. Of these, two classes (nitroimidazoles and oxazolidinones) and two medications (bedaquiline and SQ-109) have new methods of action for tuberculosis. Phase 2 trials of bedaquiline added to existing therapy for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis have shown a substantial increase in the rate of sputum-culture conversion at 8 weeks of therapy. Phase 3 trials of each drug are underway, and manufacturers have applied for accelerated marketing approvals by regulatory agencies. Accelerated approval was recently granted by the Food and Drug Administration for the use of bedaquiline in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Several studies of combination drugs are being conducted or are being planned, although these trials face barriers that include pharmacokinetic interactions, the reliance on clinical rather than surrogate end points, and the relatively low financial incentive for drug companies to perform

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