Combination treatment of WHO standard drugs and Artemisia Afra for pulmonary tuberculosis - a Pilot study of 25 multi resistant patients

Abstract

Introduction: Tuberculosis is one of the leading infectious causes of death worldwide. The WHO estimates that 1.7 billion people close to one quarter of the humanity are infected with Mycobacterium Tuberculosis the bacteria that causes TB. Last year, 10.6 million fell ill from TB and 1.6 million died.1 Moreover, multi resistance to the current anti-tuberculosis drugs is growing thus causing a serious challenge in controlling the spread of the disease worldwide. Fortunately, as we demonstrated on previous studies that Artemisia Afra infusions given with the WHO approved drugs can shorten treatment duration and resistance from 9 months to 52 days maximum2 and out of the 102 patients 95 were cured in 30 days and 7 in 52 days. Most recently we also demonstrated that 25 patients of regular tuberculosis completely recovered after 30 days or less by combining Artemisia Afra infusions whereby the other 25 patients who took the WHO treatment ALONE either abandoned their treatment and if they continued it, they were still sick on day 30.3 The objective of this pilot study is to demonstrate that 25 patients with multi resistant tuberculosis when given Artemisia Afra infusions combined with second line anti tb drugs were able to recover in 35 days maximum instead of 90 days or more. Methods: This case study involved 25 patients who were all multi resistant or recidivist to the tuberculosis and have failed the first line treatment. Moreover, they were confirmed by a GeneXpert test to be resistant to Rifampicin and or Isoniazid. All patients were hospitalized at Ijenda Hospital in Bujumbura rural Province, Burundi between February, and April 2024. They were given the second line treatment at the regular dose + Artemisia Afra infusion at 330 ml three times a day. The patients were also fed with a protein rich meal and nurses made sure that medications were taken regularly according to DOT [Directly Observed Technique]. Results: All the 25 patients recovered in 35 days maximum (see details in the Tables below). Conclusion: The combination therapy [Artemisia Afra infusions+ WHO protocol] has a lot of potential in curing tuberculosis but more studies on a larger cohort [300 patients] will be carried out and there will also be a third leg with multi resistant cases that failed first line treatment with many months of sickness.