Effectiveness and safety of delamanid- or bedaquiline-containing regimens among children and adolescents with multidrug resistant or extensively drug resistant tuberculosis: A nationwide study from Belarus, 2015-19

There is limited evidence describing the safety and effectiveness of bedaquiline and delamanid containing regimens in children and adolescents with Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB) globally. In this nationwide descriptive cohort study from Belarus, we examined adverse drug events, time to culture conversion, treatment outcomes including post-treatment recurrence among children and adolescents (<18 years of age) treated with bedaquiline and/or delamanid containing regimens from 2015 to 2019. Of the 40 participants included (55% females; age range 10-17 years), 20 (50%) had XDR-TB and 15 (38%) had resistance to either fluoroquinolone or second-line injectable. Half of the patients received delamanid and another half received bedaquiline with one patient receiving both drugs. AEs were reported in all the patients. A total of 224 AEs were reported, most of which (76%) were mild in nature. Only 10 (5%) AEs were graded severe and one AE was graded life-threatening. A total of 7 AEs (3%) were classified as ‘serious’ and only one patient required permanent discontinuation of the suspected drug (linezolid). Most of the AEs (94%) were resolved before the end of treatment. All patients culture-positive at baseline (n=34) became culture-negative within three months of treatment. Median time to culture conversion was 1.1 months (interquartile range: 0.9-1.6). Two patients were still receiving treatment at the time of analysis. The remaining 38 patients successfully completed treatment. Among those eligible and assessed at 6 (n=32) and 12 months (n=27) post-treatment, no recurrences were detected. In conclusion, treatment of children and adolescents with MDR-TB and XDR-TB using bedaquiline and/or delamanid containing regimens was effective and had favourable safety profile. Achieving such excellent outcomes under programmatic settings is encouraging for other national tuberculosis programmes, which are in the process of introducing or scaling-up the use of these new drugs in their countries.