Urgency of novel anti-tuberculosis strategies: a prospective challenge

Tuberculosis (TB) is a fatal infectious disease, caused by bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, killing nearly two million people every year. The increasing incidence of resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains to currently used drugs due to inadequate dosing and incomplete treatment regimens is a major factor contributing to the current TB epidemic. Due to this concern, scientists have renovated their approaches to the finding of novel anti-tuberculous drugs and the development of the nanoparticle-based delivery system to subdue technological drawbacks and improve the effectiveness of therapeutic drugs. This article deals with the following areas: first, the present status of the development of new anti-tuberculous drugs is reviewed. This includes the newly approved drugs bedaquiline and delaminid, and other new promising anti-tuberculous agents, such asnitroimidazoles, diarylquinolines and oxazolidinones; and second, the development of new nanotechnology-based therapies which can be used for the treatment of TB is reviewed. This includes liposomes-based, niosomes-based and microemulsions-based anti-tubercular drug delivery strategies.