Kenya will benefit from a new plan to bring a common drug that prevents TB, to children.
The new agreement, funded by Unitaid, will also make the therapy cheaper by bringing in a new manufacturer of generics.
The preventative treatment consists of two drugs—rifapentine and isoniazid—and was rolled out in Kenya last year.
It reduced the pill burden from nine to three pills a week for adults.
However, children were left out because there was no proper formulation for them.
Currently, the tablets need to be swallowed whole, which is difficult for some children, limiting access to TB prevention for children.
The agreement, made by non-profits Unitaid and MedAccess, will make the tablets cheaper and bring in a second generic manufacturer. The deal was announced last week.
“In recent years, we’ve come a long way towards improving access, at an affordable cost, to tuberculosis-prevention treatments that are shorter and easier to take, but supply has remained a constraint,” said Dr Matteo Zignol, WHO global tuberculosis programme.
“This announcement will help us prevent TB among more people by ensuring there is enough supply to meet the needs of eligible countries. Ultimately, preventing TB is critical to our ability to finally end this deadly disease.”
The therapy treats latent TB, a specific form of TB where individuals have no symptoms, are not contagious and often don’t know they are infected.
Global data shows that without treatment, five to 10 of these people will develop active TB, the form which makes people sick and can be transmitted to others.
“People with Latent TB infection pose a great threat in the community as they are the breeding ground for the TB epidemic. TB preventive therapy is offered to individuals who are considered at risk of developing TB disease in order to reduce that risk,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said.
The Kenya Latent Tuberculosis infections policy recommends five groups of people who should receive medication to prevent TB.
These are people living with HIV, all household contacts of persons with bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary TB, prisoners and prison staff, health care workers and certain patients such as those with cancer or on dialysis.
They only need to take the fixed-dose combination of just three pills once a week for 12 weeks.
Unitaid will will give $20 million (Sh2.3 billion) for research to ensure evidence that children and pregnant women, including those living with HIV, and household contacts have access to the latest TB prevention regimens.
The funding will be channelled through a non-profit called IMPAACT4TB Consortium (Increasing Market and Public Health Outcomes Through Scaling Up Affordable Access Models of Short Course Preventive Therapy For TB).
It comprises Aurum Institute, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Johns Hopkins University, KNCV the Dutch TB Foundation and the Treatment Action Group.
“To date, the world has fallen behind in reaching children with short-course, rifapentine-based TB prevention regimens,” said Prof Gavin Churchyard, IMPAACT4TB Principal Investigator and Aurum Group CEO.
“This new funding will build on the successes of the IMPAACT4TB programme, and allow us to fill the major evidence gaps that exist when it comes to preventing TB in children living with HIV, as well as in HIV positive pregnant women.”
The additional funding will help identify the correct dosing and drug-to-drug interactions when children and pregnant women living with HIV take three months of weekly isoniazid and rifapentine—or 3HP—combined with dolutegravir (DTG) based Anti-Retroviral Therapy.
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