Clinical pharmacy in the era of an injection-free regimen for drug-resistant tuberculosis

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is the ninth leading cause of death worldwide with the 2019 global report placing South Africa (SA) among the six high TB burden countries.¹ Globally, treatment success rates (cured and completed treatment) for multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in the 2016 cohort were 56% and for extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) 39%. Despite major investments in medicine, diagnostics and programmatic management, low treatment success rates, high failure and loss to follow up rates have been reported for DR-TB globally and in SA.