الرئيسية
(Reuters) - New
U.S. guidelines on the treatment of tuberculosis slashes the amount of
time needed to treat the infection from nine months to three.
The recommendations, released on Thursday, are based on clinical
trials showing that once-weekly treatment with the anti-TB drugs
rifapentine and isoniazid, taken under the supervision of a health
provider, work as well as nine months of daily treatment completed by
patients on their own.
The supervised regimen, which ensures people take their medications
faithfully, cuts the number of required doses from a total of 270 given
once a day to 12 given once a week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention said.
"This regimen has the potential to be a game-changer in the United
States when it comes to fighting TB," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden
said in a statement.
"It gives us a new, effective option that will reduce by two-thirds -
from nine months to three months - the length of time someone needs to
take medicine to prevent latent TB infection from progressing to active
TB disease."
In latent TB, a person may be infected with TB bacteria but have no
symptoms and cannot transmit the bacteria to others. If TB becomes
active, the person becomes sick and can spread the disease to others.
People with compromised immune systems are most at risk of developing
active TB infections. Many people with latent disease never start the
nine-month course of treatment, and among those who do, many never
complete it.
The number of U.S. cases of active TB disease fell to an all-time low
of 11,182 in 2010. But about 4 percent of the U.S. population, or 11
million people, have latent infections.
TB continues to disproportionately affect people of color and foreign-born persons in this country.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Xavier Briand)
U.S. guidelines on the treatment of tuberculosis slashes the amount of
time needed to treat the infection from nine months to three.
The recommendations, released on Thursday, are based on clinical
trials showing that once-weekly treatment with the anti-TB drugs
rifapentine and isoniazid, taken under the supervision of a health
provider, work as well as nine months of daily treatment completed by
patients on their own.
The supervised regimen, which ensures people take their medications
faithfully, cuts the number of required doses from a total of 270 given
once a day to 12 given once a week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention said.
"This regimen has the potential to be a game-changer in the United
States when it comes to fighting TB," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden
said in a statement.
"It gives us a new, effective option that will reduce by two-thirds -
from nine months to three months - the length of time someone needs to
take medicine to prevent latent TB infection from progressing to active
TB disease."
In latent TB, a person may be infected with TB bacteria but have no
symptoms and cannot transmit the bacteria to others. If TB becomes
active, the person becomes sick and can spread the disease to others.
People with compromised immune systems are most at risk of developing
active TB infections. Many people with latent disease never start the
nine-month course of treatment, and among those who do, many never
complete it.
The number of U.S. cases of active TB disease fell to an all-time low
of 11,182 in 2010. But about 4 percent of the U.S. population, or 11
million people, have latent infections.
TB continues to disproportionately affect people of color and foreign-born persons in this country.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Xavier Briand)