Dr. Eristavi's Story of #TBCourage

Dr. Marika Eristavi is a researcher at the National Center for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is currently a primary investigator for a clinical trial focused on a new treatment regimen for people with #tuberculosis (TB). This is her story of #TBCourage:

Dr. Eristavi is helping pioneer new treatments for people with drug-resistant forms of TB. When patients receive current treatment options, she describes challenges with “treatment length, but also the amount of medication and its side effects—a patient’s quality of life is markedly impaired.”

New treatment regimens could reduce this burden for patients. “With this new trial, we are given the opportunity of reducing side effects and improving a patient’s quality of life,” she says. “This gives a patient the ability to be active, even during treatment.”

“It is important that new anti-TB medicines are developed and that there is ongoing work on new regimens,” she says, which would be “most significant for Georgia and for the world.”