The National TB Program (NTP) will be holding a workshop to sensitize public health and pharmacy personnel on newly acquired anti-TB medicines from the Global Drug Facility (GDF).
This workshop will assist in improving mechanisms for procurement and supply management of anti-TB and accessory medicines used in the treatment of TB.
The workshop is funded by the Global Fund and will be held at the Fiji Pharmacy and Bio-medical Services Center at Jerusalem Road on Friday October 28 at 9am.
Through the program’s Directly Observed Treatment Short (DOTS) centers, single dose formulations are used in the treatment of TB patients.
With the procurement of the new GDF kits four-drug fixed dose combination (FDC), patients will now instead of taking more than 11 tablets a day take only four.
All 11 tablets have been combined in four fixed dose combinations. It will have lesser gastrointestinal effects, better adherence to therapy and improve treatment outcome of patients undergoing treatment.
The rationale for recommending the four-drug fixed combination is that it simplifies both treatment and management of drug supply, and may prevent the emergence of drug resistance.
The four-drug FDC may increase compliance with treatment because most tuberculosis patients need to take only 3–4 tablets per day during the intensive phase of treatment instead of the 15–16 tablets per day that is commonly the case with single-drug formulations.
Also, the chance of taking an incomplete combination of drugs is eliminated, since the four essential drugs are combined in one tablet.
Studies have shown that prescriptions for tuberculosis treatment are complex and that prescription errors are common.
Clearly, the four-drug FDC makes it easier to calculate the required dosage compared with single-drug formulations.
Using a four-drug FDC means that there are fewer formulations to order and distribute, which simplifies the management of drug supply.
One advantage of the 4-drug FDC is the greater reliability with which tuberculosis programs can deliver short-course chemotherapy.
Because of the long duration of tuberculosis treatment and the large number of tablets that have to be taken every day, patients often default – use of four-drug FDCs helps to overcome these problems.
WHO supports the use of the four-drug FDC and has included the constituent drugs in the Model List of Essential Drugs on the basis of the solid evidence that short-course chemotherapy is effective and the assumption that, as long as the constituents of four-drug FDCs provide the same bioavailability as the individual constituent drugs, the four-drug FDCs will be as efficacious as single-drug formulations.
The NTP adopted the DOTS strategy in 1997 with the use of single dose anti-TB medicines for treatment.
The success of the DOTS implementation throughout the country is reflected by the declining TB rates and the zero prevalence of drug resistant TB.
Despite these remarkable achievements, the NTP continues to explore innovative means to improve case finding and treatment outcome of confirmed TB cases.