A new drug for the treatment of multi-drug resistance tuberculosis (MDR-TB) will be made public in 2018. According to the TB Alliance, the global clinical trial of this drug is in phase 3 which is the last stage of clinical trials to determine its safety and effectiveness. The new TB drug is called PaMZ.

The Phase 3 trials are being conducted in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

PaMZ drugs have been made to reduce the time required to cure drug-resistant TB from two years to only six months. The discovery of PaMZ has provided the breakthrough to finding a cure for TB disease. About 1.3 million people die annually from TB especially those co-infected with HIV/Aids.

The TB Alliance president Mel Spigelman says as long as the drug is endorsed by the World Health Organisation, it would be made available to everyone who is in need of it.

Kenya and Uganda have the highest cases of PaMZ standing at 225 and 89 respectively. However the 2013 World Health Organisation Report indicates that Rwanda ranks third lowest in East Africa on newly confirmed cases of MDR-TB, with 58 cases, behind Tanzania and Burundi with 42 and 24 respectively.

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