Introduction:
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is found in about 30 to 35% of the world’s population which is mostly in latent phase while, the active phase of TB is fatally mortal and found in about 10% of the infected population. According to World Health Organization (WHO) reports of 2012, 8.6 million people were infected with this deadly communicable disease out of which 1.3 million of the population died from TB and about 26% of the global cases solely accounted were from India. TB is considered as a poor man’s disease and large population affected are found to be either in unhygienic conditions or it has been observed in population with poor lifestyle. The diagnostic measures has been ineffective up to some extent suggesting developing promising techniques with which the demographic condition can be improved. Mycobacterium Tuberculosis has been one of the causes in most preventable deaths as of today after cancer. It has also been noted that with the fall in immunity, the latent TB hosts show rise in Tubercular activity and in turn linked with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) affected patients. The advent of developing improved Drug delivery systems (DDS) has brought a surge to researchers to kill the MTB which is prevalent in the macrophages inside granuloma cell found in lung tissue of the individual infected with MTB, thereby reducing the complications of the traditional therapies.
Oral drug delivery is the one of the most favourable and convenient routes for drug administration for the motive of better patient compliance and due to its non-invasive nature. It is not only advantageous to patient but it eliminates the pain and discomfort as compared to injections. Oral route is preferred in case with drugs having high...
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... as the New Anti-Tubercular drugs takes long span of time to come for patient use. Meanwhile, Researchers try to minimise the side effects of existing drugs by trying Combination of drugs, reducing the dose, Shorten the therapy and modifying the release of the drugs which enables to reduce the frequency of the dosage form. Taking into consideration these advantages one can conclude that Nanotechnology based systems improve the treatment regimen in case of TB patients and could possibly shorten the treatment regimen giving compliance to the patients of TB.
Another Challenge is commercial aspect of producing these Nanotechnology based systems.
In scaling up techniques, Cost increases along with the regulatory status of the FDA requirements. Heavy investments are observed in Advanced Instrumentation in areas where market potential of the drug is of utmost priority.
Its epidemiological importance is illustrated by World Health Organization Prevention of Tuberculosis includes better living conditions, proper nutrition, and positive health practices” (Fogel, 2015, p.530). Positive health practices include covering nose and mouth when coughing and frequent hand washing. Bacille Calmette-Gurin (BCG) vaccine tends to be given in other countries. Tuberculosis is known as one of the main causes of mortality in the world. This communicable disease is a serious public health conundrum. “The disease still puts a strain on public health, being only second to HIV/AIDS in causing high mortality rates” (Matteelli, Roggi, & Carvalho, 2014, p.
Drug resistance in mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) has become a severe global health threat. The fight against TB is now facing major challenges due to the appearance of Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and more recently, the virtually untreatable Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB). MDR-TB are strains that are resistant to both top first-line drugs, Isoniazid and Rifampin, while XDR-TB are MDR-TB strains that are also resistant to any fluoroquinolone and one or more of 3 injectable drugs. With this new resistance, there emerges a great need to find new drugs that are as effective, yet bypass the problem of resistance. One method of research is to find new vulnerabilities of tuberculosis to use as new target sites of drugs. This method is highly expensive (Scheffler, Colmer, Tynan, Demain, & Gullo, 2013), and requires intense and lengthy research just to implicate the new target site. An alternative is to develop new drugs that work on the same already known target as the first-line drugs, but by a different mechanism, thereby bypassing the resistance of the TB to the drug.
Yu, Winnie and Joel Hay. 1999. “Drug Patents and Prices: Can we Achieve Better Outcomes?” Measuring the Prices of Medical Treatments. Pages 27-28.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is the bacterium that causes the disease tuberculosis (TB). A distinctive characteristic of the genus Mycobacteria is the presence of a thick lipid-rich cell wall and resistance to the decolourization step of the gram stain (being acid-fast). The acid-fast characteristic of the M. tuberculosis is the result of a waxy, lipid-rich cell wall. The cell envelope of the tubercle bacilli contains a layer beyond the peptidoglycan which is exceptionally rich in lipids, glycolipids and polysaccharides. The bacterium is gram positive bacillus which is an obligate aerobe, is non-motile, a non-endospore forming and is non-capsulated. The microscopic appearance of M. tuberculosis is seen as straight, slightly curved rods approximately 3 x 0.3µm in size. In liquid culture media, the bacteria usually grow as twisted rope-like pellets known as ‘serpentine cords’. M. tuberculosis is capable of growing on a wide range of enriched culture media such as Lowenstein-Jensen medium or Middlebrook medium. The optimum growth temperature of the pathogenic organsim is 35-37°C and unlike most other mycobacteria, it cannot grow at a temperature of 25°C or 41°C. M. tuberculosis is an airborne pathogen that is transmitted from person to person, usually infecting the respiratory tract through inhalation (Greenwood, et al., 2012).
By examining historical factors that affect the regulation of the industry, reasons for the rising costs and lower productivity can be determined. Recent trends and emerging fields that have contributed to the causes for the rising costs of drug development, as well as worked to improve efficiency and reduce costs, within the drug ...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT) is a slender, rod-shaped, aerobic bacillus which causes tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborn infection which is transmitted via inhaling droplet nuclei circulating in the air. These droplets are expelled from the respiratory secretion of people who have active TB through coughing, sneezing, and talking (Porth, 2011). Some bacilli stay in the upper airway and are swept out by mucus-secreting goblet cells and cilia on the surface of the airway. Others will escape from this protective mechanism to travel and settle down at alveoli (Porth, 2011). Local inflammatory reaction occurs and macrophages are cells that act as next line defense mechanism to fight with mycobacteria. First they engulf micobacteria, try to reduce their strength and ability, and kill them. In the same way they send antigen to helper T lymphocytes to initiate a cell-mediated immune response (Knechel, 2009). The infected macrophages will send produced cytokines and enzymes to breakdown mycobacteria’s protein. It is the released cytokines that attract T ly...
Tuberculosis is a bacteria infection that affects many people over the world. Treatment for the disease helps people but it is limited. Vaccination is sought but, like treatment, is limited. Because of these limitations Tuberculosis spreads and kills easily. Tuberculosis can be cured by constant drug therapy.
Some of the most critical challenges that the pharmaceutical industry is having to deal with are, keeping up with the innovations, global regulations and guidelines, and problems with reimbursement. Innovations has always been a major challenge within the pharmaceutical industry. In the article, Facing the Industry’s Challenges, Dominic Behan, Ph.D., stated that, “If we are going to address unmet medical needs, we must bring new innovative products to market (Grom, 2013).” The pharmaceutical industry has a tendency to shift towards lesser risk targets because of the importance of the investments of generating products within clinical trials and from there they have to have an approval. This should be addressed by utilizing innovative state-of-the-art equipment and technologies, and knowledge to be able to approach the rarest targets, and by
Pharming for pharmaceuticals is a dangerous process regarding organisms because of deadly gene defects that will make the animal suffer and the thousands of dollars wasted on failed attempts.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a transmittable and often severe airborne disease, an infection caused by a bacteria known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). TB usually affects the lungs, but it also can affect any other organ of the body. It is usually treatable with a scheduled routine of medicine taken for 6 months to 2 years, the length of treatment is conditional on the type and severity of the infection ( WHO. October 2015). This usually happens when a person breathes in the contaminated air, in which inhaled TB bacteria make their way to the lungs. The immune system cannot stop the bacteria from growing and spreading after the initial infection.
Untreated tuberculosis patients can pass the disease by coughing or sneezing, this fills the air with bacteria containing Mycobacterium. Inhaling these unhealthy bacteria a person can be infected with tuberculosis. “This causes the parasite to multiply in the blood, causing headaches, fever, weakness, pain in the joints, and stiffness.” (World Health Organization, 2014) People who become ill might not demonstrate signs of illness right away. Nevertheless, medication is available for tuberculosis, though this can take six to nine months and sometimes longer to be treated during the course of taking the
Oral route is the most common route of drug administration in daily practice. However, drugs may not be suitable to be delivered orally in some circumstances. Young children, elderly, those experiencing nausea, vomiting and unconscious patients, face difficulty or even unable to swallow the medicines [1]. In these cases, rectal route becomes a good al...
The disease can be caused by different mycobacterium such as Mycobacterium bovis, M. africanum, M. canettii, M. microti, and most commonly, M. tuberculosis; although the five are highly similar and are together termed the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC). Recently, two additional organisms. Mycobacterium pinnipedii and Mycobacterium caprae have also been implicated with the disease in humans. 6, 7 Members of the MTBC are gram-positive, long, rod-shaped bacterium with unique characteristics such as an exceptionally slow growth rate and a high content of lipids in their cell wall which provide protection against degradation and may account for their persistent survival in the environment even after the death of a host. 8
The distribution of a compound depends on its solubility, binding ability and many other factors. The biggest factors the contribute to distribution rates, is a drug’s binding ability, the volume in which it is being distributed and removal rate. In order to study distribution different locations of the body are referred to as compartments. One of the most common ways to estimate drug distribution is using the apparent volume of distribution, which uses the concentration of the drug in the plasma, plasma concentration, and the amount of drug in the body (measured shortly after administration). In clinical practice this can be used to estimate the dosage required to reach the needed plasma concentration for the drug to have the desired
There are several ways to prevent tuberculosis. One is to control existing infections from those infected including people, pets, and cows. Unfortunately, more than 1/3 of the population has tuberculosis, making it hard to contain every case of tuberculosis. The BCG vaccine exists, but it is not very useful in countries like the US. The body’s defenses against tuberculosis are effective but fail once the immune system becomes suppressed. Antibiotics can be used to help prevent tuberculosis, but tuberculosis quickly grows resistant to antibiotics. Much needed research is being done to find a way to fight off and prevent tuberculosis.