The Pharmaceutical Unit

The Pharmaceutical Unit Supports the programme in determining the needs related to drug distribution, procurement, quantification, quality assurance and application for new formulations or treatment.

The programme currently managed to start treatment for adults using the six months regimen with the assistance of Global Drug Facility (GDF) www.stoptb.org/gdf. which consists of:

  1. 2 months of intensive phase (Rifampicin, Isoniazid, Pyrazinamide and Ethambutol.
  2. 4 months of continuation phase (Rifampicin and Isoniazid)
More information about the formulation can be got from the National NLTP guideline.

The 6 months treatment is available in Nairobi and Homabay district only, the rest of the country will be phased gradually as the 8 months treatment is consumed. According to our estimation by the year 2009, the six months regimen will have been rolled to cover thewhole country.

The paediatric (child) formulations have been missing in Tuberculosis treatment in Kenya leading to breaking tablets to suit the child drug needs. The problems will be a thing of the past as the programme has managed to secure the medications from GDF and Government of Kenya: grants for paediatric formulations have been made possible through funding from UNITAID.www.unitaid.eu. More information about the paedetric drugs will soon be available on this site.

Multidrug resistance (MDR) TB treatment for patients mainly resistant to atleast rifampicin and isoniazid will be getting drugs by January 2008. Kenyatta hospital will used as an isolation facility for treating these patients for the first six months.
The MDR drugs are: Capreomycin, Prothionamide,ofloxacin and Cycloserine (Para-amino salicylic acid is a substitute for patients with adverse reactions).
Ancilliary drugs are also being procured to manage side effects expected to be caused by the drugs.

Anti-leprotic drugs are provided by the division at no cost in collaboration with World Health Organization to specific areas in the country where leprosy is still present. Most of the leprosy cases treated are for Multi-bacillary Adult.
The drugs used for treatment of leprosy available include:

  1. Multi-bacillary adult
  2. Multi-bacillary child
  3. Pauci-bacillary adult
  4. Pauci-bacillary child
The regimen that is being used in the DLTLD is multiple drug therapy(MDT) which was introduced in 1984 and replaced the Dapsone monotherapy.