Emergency supplies of TB drug distributed

The emergency supplies of Ethionamide – part of the cocktail of drugs used to treat Tuberculosis (TB) patients – arrived in Guyana this week and were distributed to patients following a recent shortage.

A statement from the Ministry of Public Health Saturday quoted its Director of Pharmacy, Oneil Atkins as saying that, “all TB patients would be adequately treated.”

According to the release, Dr Jeetendra Mohanlall, Manager of the National TB Programme, said that Guyana is pushing for quality second line medication but due to some “global challenges” the delivery was delayed.

“The four-second line drugs used to treat these drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) patients are sourced from South Korea, Japan India, and Cyprus, through the Guyana Defence Force ( GDF),” Dr Mohanlall said, according to the release.

He also reiterated that the medicines will be enough to treat “all drug-resistant TB patients for another year”.

“This is the first time in four years that we had a brief interruption of one of the medications for patients,” the National TB Programme Manager said.