Georgia continues to struggle with tuberculosis (TB), today’s leading infectious disease killer, and its drug-resistant forms. The homeless, unemployed, migrants, prisoners, and people who excessively consume alcohol are among the most affected. But the good news is that the number of people suffering from drug-resistant TB has dropped over the past few years largely due to the arrival of new medicines. The first drugs to be developed in almost half a century — bedaquiline and delamanid — now offer the opportunity to treat multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) more quickly and effectively.
