Image: EUGENE COETZEE
In a world first, the BEAT Tuberculosis medicine trial was launched in Nelson Mandela Bay on Wednesday.
The trial is a research project aimed at cutting treatment times and minimising sideeffects.
If successful, the new treatment regime will cut the treatment time for drug-resistant TB by several months and also eradicate the dangers of hearing loss as a side-effect to medication.
Recruitment for the trial will begin in May and USAID will fund the R125m study over the next five years.
According to the latest statistics from the Eastern Cape health department, there are 1,251 patients with drug-resistant TB in the metro, with 852 being resistant to more than one drug and 399 cases being extremely drug-resistant.
The principal investigator for the trial, Dr Francesca Conradie, said a new six-month treatment programme would be tested using four different medications – Linezolid, Delamanid, Bedaquiline and Clofazimine.
She said Nelson Mandela Bay had a high incidence of drug-resistant cases.
“This is possibly due to a combination of high rates of HIV-Aids infections and poverty,” she said.
The director of the Clinical HIV Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, Professor Ian Sanne, said the rest of the world would be watching the trial in Nelson Mandela Bay.
“We are also reaching out to the medical school at Nelson Mandela University to collaborate with the trial,” he said.
The trial is expected to continue for the next four years.
“It is time to end TB,” Conradie said.
“We have the tools within our grasp.”
She said the danger of introducing any new medicine to treat an illness such as TB was that resistance would develop over time.
“The major danger of drugresistant TB is that it has now become a transferable disease.
“You don’t just get it because you have defaulted on your medicine,” she said.
“However, I believe that the eradication of drug-resistant TB is possible in our lifetime.”
She said that previously the treatment of patients with drug-resistant forms of the disease was abysmal.
“It took four to six weeks for us to diagnose them and then they had to endure 24 months of painful injections.”
Doctors can now diagnose within a few hours and have better drugs to treat people.
“We also have a political commitment to fight TB.”
USAID mission director John Groarke confirmed that the organisation would be funding the R125m study over the next five years.
“We are happy to support this initiative,” he said.
“Sometimes it takes perseverance, creativity and effort to do something better.”
Dr Norbert Nyoka, of the drug-resistant TB directorate of the national department of health, said there was still a lot of work to do in fighting tuberculosis in South Africa.
“There is a need for continuous research,” he said.
“This is an innovative, groundbreaking and pragmatic trial.”
South Africa was the first country to stop using injections in its treatment regime for drug-resistant TB.
“If this trial goes well, we will be the first country to implement this,” Nyoka said.
“The importance of this study is that it will evaluate what we are doing now.”