The 2010s saw breakthroughs in global public health problems that saved millions of lives. National Public Radio (NPR) spoke with Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty experts on the greatest scientific successes in the last ten years.
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr director of ICAP at Columbia Mailman School said it was two drugs in the past decade — bedaquiline and delaminid – which emerged to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). “They’re taken by mouth and are well-tolerated,” she says. “As the simpler, safer treatments become available, they could be game changers for patients in the developing world. Early treatments for the drug-resistant disease had required injections over many months, and the side effects, such as hearing loss, kidney failure, depression or psychosis, could be worse than the disease.”
Read more on the ASPPH website
Read the full article on NPR’s Goats and Soda blog
Read more about ICAP’s work on HIV and tuberculosis