Contributed by: Dr. Ashok Tamhankar and Dr. Nishtha Khatri
India has become a cradle for strains of TB bacteria that can hold out against antibiotics; in 2019, the country registered the highest number of drug-resistant TB cases in the world. Among the reasons that bacteria grow inured to antibiotics is an insufficient duration of treatment: 
doctors prescribing regimens that are too brief, or patients stopping their doses if they feel better or cannot afford their medicines. These strains of drug-resistant TB bacteria have spread to the US, the UK, Germany, and other countries. Crafting new antibiotics to battle these bacteria takes 10-15 years of work and at least $1 billion in investment per drug.
