Eligibility for WHO shorter MDR treatment regimen among foreign-born MDR PTB patients in Singapore

We report the phenotypic drug susceptibility pattern of these cases to detemine their eligibility for the WHO shorter MDR-TB regimen.From 2002 to 2016, there were 214 foreign-born MDR PTB cases diagnosed in Singapore. These originated from Indonesia (n=76), Myanmar (n=54), China (n=37), Philiippines (n=18), Vietnam (n=15), India (n-7), Bangladesh (n=4) and others (n=3). Nine (4.2%) were XDR and 28 (13.1%) pre-XDR cases. Phenotypic DST showed 16.7% (35/209) resistance to ofloxacin, 5.2% (11/213) resistance to kanamycin, 23% (49/213) resistance to ethionamide, 47.2% (101/214) resistance to ethambutol, 56.7% (68/120) resistance to pyrazinamide and 5.4% (4/74) resistance to clofazimine. 151 (70.5%) of the 214 cases were resistant to at least one of these six constituent drugs of the WHO shorter MDR-TB treatment regimen, and only 15 (7%) showed confirmed susceptibility to all six drugs.The WHO shorter MDR-TB treatment regimen is not applicable in at least 70% of MDR-TB patients in South-east Asia if the patients in our study are representative of those in their countries.
Source: European Respiratory Journal - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Tuberculosis Source Type: research