"The addition of these four medicines will reinforce efforts to scale up access to anti-tuberculosis medicines in high-burden areas and in countries which may have only limited capacity to control and monitor pharmaceuticals," says World Health Organization (WHO) officials.
There are TB strains that have become drug resistant. One of the four medicines being added to the list of treatments is considered most important, as it specifically attacks the TB drug-resistant strains.
These drugs are being manufactured by a company in India.
This is the first time drugs are being added to the pre-qualified list of medicines in two years.
Although TB is perceived to be a disease of the past, it still continues to kill approximately 5,000 people daily. The WHO reported nearly 9 million cases of TB worldwide in 2005, with an estimated 1.6 million deaths from this total.
