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Researchers have developed a new drug candidate that has shown promising signs of curing tuberculosis.
The team, made up of mostly Koreans, says it could potentially help prevent thousands
of deaths each year.
Kim Min-ji reports. Although once thought to have been eradicated,... tuberculosis still
kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world each year.... and is second only
to ***/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide due to a single infectious agent.
More than 2-thousand people die from TB in Korea each year and the country has the highest
rate of contraction in the OECD.
There are two existing treatments for TB,... but they have increasingly become inadequate
as they were developed over 40 years ago and multi-drug resistant TB is now present almost
everywhere.
The new drug candidate, however, will likely curb further outbreaks of the infectious disease,...
thanks to its ability to inhibit the bacteria that causes TB.
Animal tests have shown 99-point-9-percent efficacy,... and also excellent effectiveness
to drug resistant TB.
The researchers screened hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds for their ability to
inhibit tuberculosis growth,... and destroy the tubercular bacillus without harmful side
effects.
During the process, they identified molecules that killed the infectious agent without harming
the cells.
"It is meaningful that we have developed a new drug candidate and proved that the substance
has new mechanisms."
The researchers say the development of the new drug candidate will treat latent tuberculosis,...
as well as shorten the treatment period for patients.
"We will likely conduct clinical tests early next year. After the tests, the medication
will be available for patients to use. "
In the meantime, the researchers plan to continue to screen new molecules to find more candidate
tuberculosis drugs.
Kim Min-ji, Arirang News.