A 6-month course of the new TB medicine would cost up to $15.5. For India, it will be manufactured by pharmaceutical major Macleods.
A new child-friendly version of a cocktail of tuberculosis drugs has been introduced and it is expected to make a big difference to the treatment of the disease.
The new version of the fixed dose combination of Rifampicin, Isoniazid and Pyrazinamide, was announced today by global non-profit TB Alliance and its partners.
The drug is expected to be affordable and meets the guidelines of the World Health Organisation. But its big draw is that it comes in two flavours - raspberry and strawberry - which, Dr Philippe Duneton of global health initiative UNITAID says, will "go down easier".
The version so far available was one pill of adult dosage, which had to be broken into half and given to children. To mask the bitter taste, it had had to be given mixed with milk or yogurt.
This left room not only for inexact dosage, but often, children did not finish the milk, and therefore ended up consuming wrong dosage, he said.
While harming the patient, inexact dosage also result in the growth of antibiotic resistant bacillus.
A 6-month course of the new TB medicine would cost up to $15.5. For India, it will be manufactured by pharmaceutical major Macleods.
It is not yet known when the medicine will be launched in India. "The onus to make them available is upon political will," Dr Mel Spigelman, president of TB Alliance, told NDTV.
According to the estimates by the World Health Organisation, 1 million children get infected with tuberculosis every year of whom, 140,000 die. In India - which witnesses the largest number of deaths - children comprise 5% of the new TB patients every year.
Currently, the TB vaccine given to children in India is Bacille Calmette-Guerin, commonly known as BCG. The US Centres for Disease Control or Prevention, or CDC, says it does not always protect people from getting TB.