Advocates call on Indian government to stop using injectable agents for the treatment of drug-resistant TB
Advocates urge the Indian government to stop using kanamycin for the treatment of drug-resistant TB and instead scale up access to all oral regimens.
On 3 February 2022, TB advocates sent an open letter urging the Indian government to immediately stop using the injectable agent kanamycin for the treatment of drug-resistant TB and instead scale up access to all oral regimens.
“The Indian government has on various platforms and forums committed to an all oral regimen for the treatment of drug-resistant TB [DR-TB]. Yet the use of injectables continues unabated. The injectable drug – kanamycin – is associated with the most adverse side-effects, i.e. irreversible hearing loss and kidney impairment… This second-line injectable was previously difficult to replace due to the lack of effective antibiotics for DR-TB. But that has changed and kanamycin is no longer recommended to treat MDR-TB [multidrug-resistant TB] and has been proven to have high toxicity and poor efficacy against TB. The WHO Consolidated Guidelines on Tuberculosis, Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment, no longer recommends using kanamycin and instead calls for a scale up of the two new oral drugs – bedaquiline and delamanid. They are safer options to replace kanamycin for rifampicin-resistant and MDR-TB.”
To read the full letter, click here.
