WC researchers find first safe, effective treatment to prevent drug-resident TB
Researchers at the Desmond Tutu Tuberculosis Centre at Stellenbosch University reported that the use of an anti-biotic, levofloxacin, resulted in an almost 60% drop in the risk of developing drug-resistant TB in children.
FILE: A digitally colourised scanning electron microscopic image depicts a grouping of red-coloured, rod-shaped Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria which cause tuberculosis in human beings. Picture: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
CAPE TOWN - The Desmond Tutu Tuberculosis (TB) Centre at Stellenbosch University found the first-ever safe and effective treatment to prevent multidrug-resistant TB in both children and adults.
Researchers from the centre reported that an antibiotic taken for six months, once daily, could reduce the risk of developing drug-resistant TB in children by 56%.
Associate Professor James Seddon, who was part of the team that discovered the treatment during a trial, said it took five years to get an outcome.
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"We recruited nearly a thousand children who had been living with or came into contact with an adult who had multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and we gave them either the levofloxacin, which is the antibiotic we were testing, to see if it would prevent TB or placebos," Seddon said.
Seddon said the researchers found that the children who used the antibiotic were 60% less likely to develop TB.
"What we found was that there was a substantial reduction in the risk of getting TB if you took levofloxacin every day for six months.”
Seddon said the World Health Organization (WHO) is set to provide guidelines in the coming months after considering the findings of the trial.