Thaindian News

Washington, Jan 4 (IANS) Tuberculosis (TB) which becomes resistent to multi-drugs is not caused by irregular doses, as is widely believed, but by speedy drug metabolism, according to a US study.

The body sees drugs as foreign chemicals and tries to rid itself of them, said Tawanda Gumbo, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern, who led the study.

A population of individuals with a genetic trait that speeds the metabolic process has been found in one area of South Africa that has a high rate of multidrug-resistant TB.

“Tuberculosis is a common ailment, accounting for up to three percent of all deaths in many countries,” said Gumbo.

“Although effective therapy exists, there are still cases of treatment failure, and drug resistance remains a threat,” added Gumbo.

The results seem to challenge the current approach endorsed by the World Health Organization that relies on directly observed therapy-short-course strategy (DOTS).

TB that responds to medication is treated with a cocktail of drugs under the supervision of health care workers.

“Every TB patient is supposed to be watched as they swallow their pills in order to increase adherence and decrease emergence of drug resistance,” said Gumbo.

In fact, using computer simulations based on 10,000 TB patients in Cape Town, South Africa, researchers discovered that one percent of all TB patients with perfect adherence to dosage still developed drug resistance because they cleared the drugs from their bodies more quickly.