Malnourished children would have intestinal imbalances, responsible for the poor absorption of drugs. This would explain why the treatments are not effective in them.
- In 2020, 1.5 million people died of tuberculosis worldwide.
- 95% of deaths occur in developing countries.
- In 2020, in France, more than 4,600 cases of tuberculosis were declared.
The year 2020 will have been marked by the Covid-19 epidemic, but in terms of public health, another major event has occurred: for the first time in ten years, the number of people who died of tuberculosis in the world has grown. This infectious disease is considered a health emergency by theWorld Health Organization. For several years, HIV infection has been known to facilitate the progression of the disease in the body, but scientists continue to search for factors that can influence its development. Researchers at the University of Virginia have made important discoveries on this subject. In the specialist journal The Lancet Infectious Diseasesthey explain that malnutrition could be involved in the disease.
Intestinal germs responsible for the ineffectiveness of treatments
These scientists and their collaborators located in Tanzania find that malnutrition and intestinal infections interfere with TB treatment in young children. They found that children with common intestinal infections had lower concentrations of anti-tuberculosis drugs in their bodies and the more infections they had, the lower the drug concentration. “The blame for TB treatment failure was historically attributed to the patient and lack of compliance with medication“says researcher Scott Heysell, of the University of Virginia’s Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health.”Instead, the germs in the gut of children from poor areas are responsible for suboptimal levels of medication, even when taken as directed.” The authors even refer to malnutrition as “main risk factor”.
According to them, it is urgent to “better understand how nutritional deficiencies compromise the body’s immune system” to shed light on how the “malnutrition’ and ‘undernutrition’ affect the effectiveness of TB vaccines and treatments”. Ultimately, this could make it possible to target pathogens present in the intestine to improve the effectiveness of treatments.
What is tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis is caused by Koch’s bacillus. “This infectious agent is transmitted by air, via droplets containing bacteria and coughed up by patients.“, explains thePastor Institute. According to data from the research center, an untreated person with tuberculosis can infect 5 to 15 people on average per year. Treatments now make it possible to cure the disease, but their duration is long: at least six months up to two years for resistant forms. Immunocompromised or HIV-positive people are more likely to develop an active form of the disease, that is to say with symptoms. Without treatment, their risk of death is extremely high. Tuberculosis is one of the ten leading causes of death worldwide.