Since 2018, MSF has been supporting the National Tuberculosis program (NTP) in Iraq to improve the diagnose of patients suffering from tuberculosis and provide them with qualitative care. In 2019, MSF started advocating and working towards introducing the use of a new injection-free treatment for patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in the country, to replace their old injection treatment. The advantage of this new oral drug-regimen is that it more effective, less toxic and takes away the painful injection part, consisting in daily injections for 6 to 8 months and with a potential side effects of permanent hearing loss and harm to kidneys.

In January 2020, the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP), together with the support from MSF, registered a cohort of patients for this new treatment and put the first patient with multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) on the oral regimen. And in late 2020, the full roll out of oral regimen started and all patients from the cohort
were put on the oral drug-regimen with few exceptions based on medical criteria.

In July 2021, the first patients who were enrolled on the all oral drug regimen completed their long treatment and
were declared cured. This package aims to highlight the issue of tuberculosis (with a focus on multidrug resistant
tuberculosis) in Iraq, MSF’s efforts to improve the treatment of tuberculosis patients there, and the challenges and successes along the way.