A new tuberculosis drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday, making it the newest medicine to fight the deadly infection in more than 40 years.
The FDA on Monday approved a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis pill called Sirturo for use with older drugs to fight a hard-to-treat strain of tuberculosis that has not responded to other medications.
Treatment-resistant tuberculosis is a concern of international health officials. A World Health Organization report in October found high prevalence of drug-resistant TB cases in India and China despite a falling global prevalence of TB.
However, the agency cautioned that the drug carries risks of potentially deadly heart problems and should be prescribed carefully by doctors.
Roughly one-third of the world's population is estimated to be infected with the bacteria causing tuberculosis. The disease is rare in the U.S., but kills about 1.4 million people a year worldwide. Of those, about 150,000 succumb to the increasingly common drug-resistant forms of the disease. About 60 percent of all cases are concentrated in Russia and Eastern Europe in addition to China and India.
Read more...
No comments:
Post a Comment