One-third of the world’s population is infected by tuberculosis, 10 per cent of whom develop active disease. In spite of tuberculosis being scratched out from the list of incurable diseases, the world is still struggling to get out of the claws of the disease. The reason behind this is ineffectiveness of the present drugs. A beta-lactam antibiotic, the family which includes penicillin is the drug that is presently employed to treat tuberculosis. A team of researchers studied the reason behind the ineffectiveness of the medicines. This lack of effectiveness is largely because the mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium contains a highly active enzyme which inactivates the antibiotics.

Researchers say that they have found new hope for millions of patients who are fighting tuberculosis. According to them, two drugs that have already been used for fighting other infections may help in the battle against drug-resistant tuberculosis. It is a combination of clavulanate and meropenem which was tested and found to be effective against 13 strains of the most drug resistant tuberculosis.

The number of untreatable tuberculosis cases has been the impetus behind researchers trying hard to find a cure for the disease. Combining two anti-biotic or two drugs is not a new phenomenon although it hasn’t been the most successful of the options. Due to the dire need to find a cure, forced the researchers to experiment with several combinations. In this study, they looked at several combinations of one drug to stop the enzyme working and one beta-lactam antibiotic. They found that clavulanate was the best enzyme inhibitor and meropenem, a fairly modern antibiotic, the best partner in potently killing different strains of tuberculosis.

Although this drug is still in its experimental phase, experts believe that they have found a drug to fight tuberculosis. This experiment with combinations may be the first step to eradicate the dreadful disease from the face of the earth. More is to be found at the source article.