Immune drug revived for TB

WASHINGTON - An antibiotic that shuts down the power source of the tuberculosis bacteria may become the first new drug enlisted in 40 years to fight the disease.

Dr Koen Andries, of Johnson & Johnson, said the drug had been tested on humans and seems to cause no serious side-effects.

It might be added to the drug cocktails used against tuberculosis to speed up the treatment, which takes months.

Originally developed as an immune system drug, it was a failure and languished in the library of Johnson & Johnson before being rediscovered.

Known only by its experimental name R207910, it has been tested in people in a Phase I safety trial.

The company is proceeding to Phase II, the second of three tests needed before it can be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The drug is in a new class called diarylquinolines, and works on the bacteria's source of power, an enzyme called ATP synthase.

World Health Organisation tuberculosis expert Dr Christopher Dye called the finding a breakthrough.

Globally, one out of three people is infected with latent tuberculosis, which is easily transmitted even without symptoms.

There are up to 10 million new cases of active TB each year and two million people die of it.

TB is treated with a cocktail of antibiotics, including rifampin, isoniazid, and pyrazinamide, which must be taken for six to nine months.

But the bacteria is becoming resistant to drugs and there are now strains that resist several of the antibiotics used against it.

"Given the high rates of drug-resistant TB that we are seeing, especially in former Soviet countries, it is hugely worrying that no new anti-TB drug has been discovered for more than 30 years," Dr Dye said.

"The neglect in TB drug development is due partly to the fact that TB was thought, in the Western world, to be a disease of the past.

"Investment in drug discovery has also been low because the market is in the poorest parts of the world - TB patients are mostly poor people who cannot afford to pay for costly treatments developed by big drug companies."

Dr Andries said his team, which included scientists across Europe, had been actively seeking a new antibiotic to try against TB.

They used a common method of screening drug libraries, which are collections of chemical formulas for various drugs that companies keep in their records.

He said the drug did not work for its original intended purpose but the formula was saved "just in case".

TB in Auckland

Last year 243 TB cases were notified in the region - the highest for more than a decade, and an average of nearly five a week.

Significant racial differences are emerging in the spread of TB around Auckland. More than half the Pacific Island patients fall sick after exposure to another TB case, health officials say.

The patients were 48.1 per cent Asians, and 35.8 per cent Islanders.

Auckland District Health Board said that between them the two groups accounted for most of the increase in TB in Auckland since 2000.

- REUTERS