Overcoming drug resistance for tuberculosis

Abstract

Despite enormous progress, tuberculosis (TB) is still a major global health problem. Poor patients’ adherence to the current treatment leads to the emergence of multidrug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) strains. While increased numbers of MDR-TB cases can be ascribed to difficulties in treating TB–HIV coinfected patients, many studies demonstrated that the emergence of drug-resistant TB is clearly linked to misdiagnosis and mismanagement of drug-susceptible TB. Therefore, rapid detection and proper treatment are needed globally to both cure TB patients and prevent wide spreading of the disease. This paper provides a survey of the major strategies that have been explored for overcoming drug resistance in TB.