Letter to the Editor: Better Anti-TB Medicine for Dual Front War

The world will save the lives of more than 2.5 million people with drug-resistant TB between BPaL/M’s regulatory approval through 2024. The increased treatment success rates of BPaL/M mean that over this period more than 190,000 of these lives saved will be due to adoption and implementation of BPaL/M.

When TB doesn’t kill, it often leaves people with long periods of disability. By curing drug-resistant TB faster and more effectively, BPaL/M helps people not only survive, but recover faster, and avoid long term disabilities.  That means fewer years lost to illness and more people living fully again, faster–what is often referred as “DALYs”, or disability adjusted life years– when compared to alternative treatments.

By shortening treatment, improves treatment success rates, BPaL/M drastically reduces the cost of fighting drug-resistant TB for individuals, families, and governments. Fewer hospital visits, affordable medicines, and less income lost means billions saved across every level of society.

A sizeable portion of people receiving DR-TB treatment do not complete therapy. This is often due to the length and side effects of treatments. Those who are “lost to follow up” may remain contagious and infect others, as well as suffer increased disabilty or death. BPaL/M projects significantly lower lost to follow up rates than alternative treatments.

People who do not complete treatment and/or follow-up are not considered to have successful treatment outcomes. Thus, additional treatment successes are about more than just “lives saved.” Through 2034, treating DR-TB with BPaL will result in more than 330,000 additional people with DR-TB being successfully treated.

The BPaL/M treatment costs less than $2 per day, however the vast majority of cost savings from implementing these new regimens is achieved through shorter and simpler treatment, reducing human and financial burden on health systems. This allows for the expansion of DR-TB care where costs and human resources have previously limited health systems’ capacities to treat DR-TB.

Many people battling DR-TB around the world face financial hardship. TB exacerbates those hardships through lost wages while seeking treatment, repeated trips to clinics, and other related expenses. Shorter treatments with better outcomes mean additional savings for people with DR-TB.