World’s first non-antibiotic treatment for TB unveiled in Britain

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Tuberculosis more prevalent in South Africa than earlier presumed

World’s first non-antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis has been unveiled at the University of Manchester.

A team of scientists hopes that the compound, developed after 10 years of painstaking research, will be ready for trials on humans within three to four years.

The drug, developed by the researchers, works by targeting Mycobacterium tuberculosis’ defenses rather than the bacteria itself and it can also take out its increasingly commonly antibiotic-resistant strains.

The research funded by the Medical Research Council was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, describing the drug as the first non-antibiotic drug to successfully treat tuberculosis in animals.

Image Credit: CNN