'Wonder pill' may turn tide against TB

The Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research is developing a wonder pill that could revolutionise the treatment of TB.

Currently, patients must take as many as four anti-TB drugs daily for as long as nine months, and many have to travel to a clinic to do this. This places an enormous logistical burden on both patients and clinics.

The new pill, if it hits the market, will be taken as a single pill every 10 days for just a few weeks.

The drug is still in a pre-trial phase and is expected to hit shelves only in a few years' time.

Dr Avashnee Chetty, a lead researcher at the CSIR, said: "When swallowed the drug releases gradually at the site of infection, making the medicine very effective and significantly shortening the time required for treatment.

"This will improve patient compliance and significantly reduce the cost of treatment and [the number of] cases of multi-drug-resistant TB."

Siyabulela Qwaka, who had extreme drug-resistant TB, said: "I had to leave my job because I couldn't handle the pressure of having to go to the clinic first thing in the morning every day."

Health Department spokesman Yogan Pillay said, though the drug was far from the end point, "when it happens, it will be a very big deal because we won't have to worry about patient non-compliance like we do now".

Two other treatments are in the pipeline - an oral treatment for children and a drug tailored to an individual's metabolic rate.

Researcher Dr Oluwatoyin Adeleke said TB formulations for children were not common and generally tablets meant for adults had to be broken up or dissolved.

Candice Rassie and her team at the University of the Western Cape are using computers with electro-chemical sensor capabilities to determine a TB patient's metabolic profile. D rugs could then be tailored to a patient's metabolic rate.