Kenya to introduce new TB drug next year

Written By:Xinhua News,    Posted: Fri, Feb 10, 2012

The new drug will reduce treatment period for patients from the current six months down to four months Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)said Tuesday it is doing research on a new tuberculosis (TB) drug that will reduce treatment period for those infected and should be on the market within a year. KEMRI CEO Dr Solomon Mpoke said that the new drug will reduce treatment period for patients from the current six months down to four months. "The research on new TB drug is lengthy process but we hope to conclude the study within a year in order to reduce treatment time for TB patients," Mpoke said. "The new drug is a partnership of KEMRI, TB Alliance and Britain-based Pharmaceutical company whose main target is to reduce period of treatment," he said. "This will help fight the high disease burden in the country that has been worsened by the HIV epidemic," he added. According to the World Health Organization, Kenya is among the 22 high burden countries in the world. "As soon as we have conclusive results, we will communicate to the ministry of public health so that it becomes the drug of choice in Kenya and policy for TB treatment changes," the CEO said. He said that the lengthy period required to cure the disease is one of the greatest challenges that need to be overcome in order to eliminate the disease. "The issue of strict compliance to a lengthy treatment period will be partly tackled by this new drug," he said. Mpoke added that it is common for patients on the TB medication to abandon taking the drug after a few months of seeking treatment.According to data from the ministry of public health, over 50 percent of all adults in Kenya have a latent form of TB which is suppressed due to high immune system. "If patients are not able to stick for the entire period of treatment the chances of developing drug resistant TB is greatly enhanced," the KEMRI head said. He added that treatment for a single patient suffering from drug resistant strain of TB costs between 12,000 U.S. dollars to 24,000 dollars and this is a significant burden on Kenya's health care system. "This drug will also assist many HIV positive patients who develop TB due to a weak immune system," he added. Mpoke said that KEMRI is also doing research on malaria vaccine. "We are currently doing phase three trials and results are beginning to trickle," he said. "The results show that five to 17 months old infants who are vaccinated have a 56 percent reduction of clinical malaria while there is a 47 percent reduction for those with severe malaria," he added. Mpoke said that any reduction in malaria cases is good for Kenya,as malaria is responsible for many deaths in Kenya. "If we succeed on the malaria vaccine, it will mean that the malaria parasite circulating in the country is also reduced and this will also minimize the cases of malaria infection," Mpoke added. He said that KEMRI is also in the process of developing a tool to predict a malaria outbreak in any part of the country. "Once we develop the tool, government will then be able to mobilize resources to prevent the transmission of the disease and reduce infections,"Mpoke said. Mpoke also called for increased funding for KEMRI. "As the country's main research institution, we are greatly underfunded as we are only expecting a total of 72 million dollars for the current financial year out of which the government's share is 16 million dollars against an ideal total budget of 131 million dollars," he added. Mpoke said that this heavy dependence on foreign donors is not good for the country's research efforts. "External funds are not a reliable or sustainable source of income to fund our programs," he added. He said that the main problem is that Kenya's economy is still small and therefore has many competing needs. "Our country has many priorities such as fighting hunger so research is normally not a top government priority," he added. "We should emulate countries such as Japan which invested heavily in research early in their development stages and have managed to reduce disease burden," Mpoke said. "These developed countries now don't have to spend significant resources on the treatment of infectious diseases, so I urge Kenya to follow that lead. If you reduce infectious diseases from the country,then you end up saving the health care system a lot more funds."