The world is losing the fight against tuberculosis, which kills around two million people a year, because it is using outdated drugs and diagnostic tests, a leading aid agency warned on Tuesday.
The main diagnostic test for the curable disease was invented in the 19th century and has only a 50 percent success rate in detecting TB in patients who also have HIV/AIDS, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said in a statement.
The statement, issued ahead of World Tuberculosis Day on Wednesday, said money was urgently needed for new medicines and more efficient ways of detecting the infectious disease, which is staging a comeback even in developed countries.
“We are losing the battle against tuberculosis because we rely on archaic diagnostic tests and drugs,” the group said.
MSF also called for an “urgent increase” in worldwide investment in TB research and development.
AIDS patients vulnerable
An airborne disease, TB infects nine million people a year and causes coughing, fever, sweating and loss of appetite and weight.
The World Health Organization (WHO), which is expected to issue its own report on Tuesday, launched its DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course) strategy for TB a decade ago. The program focuses on on improving patient surveillance and drug treatment.
But its task has been complicated by the fact that tuberculosis is one of the main opportunistic infections that strikes HIV/AIDS patients.
When TB occurs along with HIV/AIDS, the combination severely reduces the effectiveness of the main diagnostic test, the sputum smear microscopy test, MSF said.
“A growing number of TB patients worldwide also have HIV/AIDS, but the current diagnostic tool can only detect TB in 50 percent of HIV patients, even in a well-run TB program,” said Rowan Gillies, president of MSF International.
Furthermore, the success of first-line drugs, many of which are 50 years to 60 years old, depend on a patient sticking rigorously with treatment for six months to eight months.
“Surely we can do better than this,” declared Olivier Brouant, head of MSF’s TB project in Bombay, India.