TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK: THE DRIVING FORCE
BEHIND BPAL OR’S SUCCESS

Launched in December 2020, the Leveraging Innovations for Faster Treatment of TB (LIFT-TB) Philippines is a two-year project set out with the primary objective to validate the effectiveness and safety of a novel, all-oral, short-course regimen that is BPaL (Bedaquiline-Pretomanid-Linezolid) through an operational research (OR), a multi-country initiative of TBA Alliance New York, KNCV Netherlands and the International TB Research Center South Korea. The regimen was endorsed by the World Health Organization for programmatic use late last year. 

Targeted to enroll 100 rifampicin-resistant TB patients by December 2022, the OR surpassed its target in November 2022, one month ahead of schedule with more than 90% treatment success rate and with no documented case of failure, lost to follow-up nor recurrence to date. This success is highly attributed to the concerted efforts of implementers, led by a dedicated Research Team and supported by local and international partners.

The BPaL OR has recently concluded the conduct of an end-of-project Research Implementation Review (RIR), the output of which further validates the aforementioned success.  For this accomplishment, TDF commends the Research Team led by Dr. Irene Flores, Principal Investigator, and the 12 OR sites all over the country. It also recognizes the invaluable support of local and international partner agencies which catalyzed the efforts. TDF provides local project management support in close collaboration with the Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control of the Department of Health (DOH), the National TB Reference Laboratory and the Philippine Business for Social Progress - Advancing Client-centered Care and Expanding Sustainable Services for TB (ACCESS TB Project). 

As BPaL will shift from research to programmatic use nationwide under the stewardship of the DOH, the experience from the OR will be translated into recommendations envisioned to guide the DOH towards a smooth transition and scale-up.  It is hoped that this success, armed with the collective commitment and cooperation among stakeholders, will propel BPaL into another success story as it solidifies its role as a potent and patient-centered armament in the country’s continuing fight against TB.