A new treatment for tuberculosis could boost cure rates and shorten the time needed to treat the disease by months, trial results suggest.<\/p>\n
Globally, an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB last year and 1.23 million died from it.<\/p>\n
In its annual report on tuberculosis<\/a>, launched last week, the World Health Organization said it remained a \u201cmajor global public-health problem\u201d and the leading infectious cause of death.<\/p>\n Progress is being threatened by aid cuts and already falling short of targets towards a UN goal of ending TB as a public-health threat this decade, the WHO said.<\/p>\n Sorfequiline, a new antibiotic, showed stronger action against the deadly bacteria than existing treatments, with a comparable safety profile, researchers from the TB Alliance told the Union Conference on Lung Health<\/a> in Copenhagen on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The trial involved 309 people across 22 sites in South Africa<\/a>, the Philippines, Georgia, Tanzania and Uganda, with different dose regimens.<\/p>\n All participants had \u201cdrug-sensitive\u201d tuberculosis, meaning a standard cocktail of drugs can safely treat them but researchers believe TB infections that are resistant to standard treatment could also be helped.<\/p>\n The trial suggested a sorfequiline-based regimen could be used for anyone testing positive, said Dr Maria Beumont, vice-president of TB Alliance.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cI can just put you on a treatment while I\u2019m waiting to understand exactly what your situation is. I don\u2019t need to wait to get information back and classify you as drug sensitive, this or that regimen. There is no need to go through all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Access to swift diagnostic tests for TB is patchy and it can take days or weeks in some places for doctors to get laboratories to identify the TB type a patient has before they can be helped.<\/p>\n