According to Director of the Department of Health’s DR-TB, TB and HIV division Dr Norbert Ndjeka, the department is currently in talks with Japanese drug maker Otsuka Pharmaceutical to negotiate access to Otsuka’s DR-TB drug delamanid for what will initially be a small number of patients as part of a clinical access programme.
The proposal follows a similar 2012 access programme that paved the way for a national roll out of the DR-TB drug bedaquiline, which was the first new TB drug to hit markets in nearly four decades. South Africa now leads the world in rolling out bedaquiline with almost 2,000 patients initiated on the drug since 2012, Ndjeka told Health-e News.