Though the treatment of tuberculosis from the onset usually takes up to 9 months of daily taking of the isoniazid pills, a new study has revealed a shorter treatment period.

The study, which took 10 years to complete, was funded by CDC and led by Timothy Sterling, a physician at Vanderbilt University. It is said to be a major breakthrough in the treatment of the first stage of TB since the 1960s, by Kevin Fenton, head of tuberculosis prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tuberculosis is said to be caused by a slow growing bacterium that infects the lungs and in general cases the body’s immune system , which controls the organism, to avoid the disease is sometimes over power, due to weakness which could be from, AIDS, cancer, old age or poor nutrition.

In the new study, the old treatment was compared to the simpler one which was taking rifapentine weekly for the same 3 months as the old treatment.

The study which involved 8,000 volunteers in the US, Canada, Brazil and Spain for more than 3 –years revealed that there were 7 cases of active TB of those taking the short treatment and 15 of the old treatment.

Though the short treatment was more expensive, it was completed by 82% of the people while the old one had 69%, 4% of them from both sides were reported to have major side effects.