Clinical Pharmacology of Second-Line Anti-tuberculosis Drugs

WHO in 2022 reported that Tuberculosis (TB) was the world’s second leading cause of death from a single infectious agent after COVID-19 infections. More than 10 million people continue to fall ill from TB, a disease that is preventable and usually curable. Although the current first-line TB treatment regimen is effective, challenges such as adverse drug reactions and resistance to some of the first-line anti-TB drugs have brought about the research of new or repurposed anti-TB agents in the past decade. A review of the current second-line anti-TB medicines regarding their clinical pharmacology and efficacy in the current management of TB is presented.