Multi-drug Resistant Tuberculosis

A promising new drug now on trial offers the last hope for some patients with extreme drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis. The life or death decision on whether to make it available rests with the Medicines Control Council (MCC). In a letter sent last week to the MCC and Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) arid almost 50 doctors and scientists urged the regulatory body to consider the compassionate use of TMC207, a novel drug in Phase III trials... Read full article below.

Bangkok, Thailand – In a report released today Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the largest provider of HIV treatment in Myanmar, highlights the critical need for increased HIV and Tuberculosis (TB), including multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), treatment in the country. An HIV patient is assessed in an MSF clinic, Myanmar. He is 21 years old yet weighs just 23kg. Photo: Greg Constantine   According to the report, 85,000 people in urgent need of lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in Myanmar are today unable to access it. Of an estimated 9,300 people newly infected with MDR-TB each year, so far just over 300 have been receiving treatment...

 The UN estimates that over the last few years between 15,000 – 20,000 people living with HIV die annually in Myanmar, because of lack of access to urgent lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Lives in the Balance outlines the situation for people affected by HIV and TB, with a special focus on multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), in Myanmar today. It calls for urgent funding and assistance to be made available by the international donor community to help Myanmar close the devastating gap between people’s need and people’s access to treatment for HIV and TB. An estimated 120,000 people living with HIV/AIDS are in need of lifesaving ART, in Myanmar. In 2010, according to national estimates,...

‘5 Lives’ are the stories of people that MSF works with every day, whose health and lives often hang on a simple medical intervention. These personal experiences are a snapshot of the unnecessary suffering MSF medical staff see first-hand daily in places where people can’t get adequate medical care and that could be avoided with proper, sustainable funding and investment. We’re doctors and nurses, not bankers, but we can see how investing in real futures – like the futures of the people profiled here - will transform the lives of those made vulnerable through illness, and create a strong foundation for their families and their communities to build on. That’s why MSF supports calls to direct a small...