A new treatment soon to be rolled out in Papua New Guinea promises to be a game changer in dealing with drug-resistant tuberculosis.
PNG has one of the highest prevalence rates of the highly infectious disease in the world with around 30,000 new cases of tuberculosis reported every year.
Effective treatment of drug-resistant strains require months of unpleasant daily injections which can have nasty side effects but a new treatment that can be taken orally will be available in Port Moresby and Daru Island in the coming months.
The Burnet Institute is helping with the rollout and it’s infectious disease expert Dr Philipp du Cros says clinical trials have been very successful.
“This is really a bit of a game changer…people go through a long and hard treatment journey, often with side effects…so offering a shorter treatment with less medications is a cause for help,” said Dr Cros.