The DOTS treatment

I had a chance to take part on one conference where there was a session about Tuberculosis (TB) and the possibility of its treatment. I must admit I still thought that the disease is uncurable and suddenly I was told about something called the DOTS treatment (Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course).

The conference was held in Azerbaijan and the lady (I am afraid I do not remember her name) was a nurse working in other post-soviet countries in Central Asia and Caucasus. She told us that post-soviet countries recorded a great increase in the amount of people suffering from TB, a disease of poverty. Another quite horrifying truth was, that over 20% of people suffering from TB in these countries acquired the drug-resistant form of it.

There are several reasons why is this so.
Firstly, the treatment requires to take a handfull of pills everyday for 6-8 months to successfully treat it. Thus it is essential to have a nurse observing your progress as some people might give up on the treatment.
Second reason is the short supply of medicine in this region. The interruption of the treatment causes the development of the drug-resistant form of TB which could infect other people.
Third reason that I was told is, that many people in post-soviet countries already have resistance towards some medicines (there is no necessity of medicine prescriptions for pharmacies so you can easily get antibiotics for anything, even if you do not need them).

The treatment of the regular form of TB can be cured with medicine that costs $10, whilst the drug-resistant form may cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. The treatment of the drug-resistant form takes 3times more than the regular, cca 20 months. Thus with the available financial resources there might be no possibility of treating the people with the drug-resistant form.