Tuberculosis kills millions of people each year. After about forty years of using the same medications to treat it, there are now strains of it now that have become resistant to the antibiotics used to treat it. These strains include XDR and MDR. However, there is a new way of treating TB by combining the meropenem antibiotic with clavulanate. These two substances together actually kill the TB bacterium. Mtb releases an eczyme that destroys other types of antibiotics. Recent studies show that clavulanate the bacterium from producing the enzyme from producing the enzyme so that meropenum is able to get rid of the infection. One of the only disadvantages is that meropenem is much more expensive than other TB treatments. Although this is a recent discovery, it has cured a 14 year-old girl with a severe case of TB after only about eight months.
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