The BPaL regimen offers a beacon of hope for
MDR-TB and XDR-TB patients
“Sana ito ay makapagbigay ng mas produktibong buhay habang nasa gamutan ang isang pasyente. Ang ipinakitang datos at kagalingan ng bagong tuklas na gamot na ito ay napapanahon na pagtulungan at pagtuunan ng pansin ng mga taga-pangalaga sa kalusugan at mga komunidad, at kung ito ay mangyayari, magiging isa itong malaking tagumpay sa larangan ng MDR-TB para sa pasyente, sa kanyang pamilya at komunidad.”
(The BPaL regimen can give MDR-TB patients a better quality of life and bring them back to productive lives even while on treatment. This will certainly have a huge impact on patients’ lives, their families and communities.) Mr. Manuel Bello, Jr., MDR-TB survivor, says during the Launch of LIFT-TB Philippines on 18 December 2020.
The conventional treatment of highly drug-resistant forms of TB has often been lengthy (up to 18 months or longer), complex (requiring as many as 22 pills daily with injection), and expensive, with severe side-effects often leading to loss of patients during treatment and eventually, low treatment success rates. The BPaL regimen is a striking contrast with only, 5-7 pills to take daily with no injection, for a duration of 6 months only. In addition to saving lives, patients and health workers can look forward to the BPaL regimen’s great potential of improving patients’ quality of life. As USec Myrna Cabotaje attests,
“Being much shorter, this will have an impact on the health system and patients’ economic status as well as in the communities as patients are brought back to their productive lives much earlier.”
Through the years, TB control efforts have come a long way from the basic diagnosis of TB through smear microscopy to the use of molecular tests such as GeneXpert and Line Probe Assay, from the traditional approach to MDR-TB treatment using long injectable-based courses to the introduction of the 9-month treatment regimen to the introduction of BPaL. This truly marks another milestone in the fight against TB.
The Philippines is among the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of 30 countries with the highest burden of TB, and multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). In 2019, nearly 600,000 TB cases (6% of the world’s total) and 21,000 MDR-TB cases were estimated by WHO in the country with MDR-TB having generally poor treatment success rates which is currently at 65%.