3-month treatment for latent tuberculosis on its way to the N.W.T.

A drug that can cut the amount of time it takes to treat latent tuberculosis, or TB, down to just three months will soon be available in the Northwest Territories.

Dr. Andre Corriveau, the territory's medical director, confirmed at an information session this week in Inuvik that Rifapentine will be available in a matter of months. The drug is part of a combination of two antibiotics that shortens treatment times down to three months from the current nine-month treatment available in the N.W.T.

Corriveau said that the drug has been offered in the United States and Europe for the past couple of years, but the manufacturer hadn't previously soughtlicensing in Canada. In 2016, an Ottawa researcher tested the Rifapentine combination in Nunavut as part of a study.

• Tuberculosis study in Nunavut tests new treatment for latent TB

Though there hasn't been a tuberculosis outbreak in the InuvialuitSettlement Region in nearly 12 years, Corriveau said that the region remains at risk.

In Nunavut, over 100 residents were diagnosed with active tuberculosis last year, and Corriveau said that many of the factors that contribute to the disease's prevalence there are also present in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, including overcrowded housing, poor diets, and a high smoking rate.

"The broader context is that there have been some Inuit communities around Canada that have had an increase in TB rates," he said. "We haven't been impacted by the resurgence, but we are certainly vulnerable."

By addressing latent tuberculosis, a term for when the disease is present in a person but is "sleeping" and not infectious something prevalent in the region, according to Corriveau he's hoping that the threat can be curbed before an outbreak happens.

"Through that option now we can reasonably aim to eliminate TB as a scourge in the North," he said.

Inuit leaders working on TB strategy

Corriveauwas in Inuvik presentingand answeringquestions at an"Elimination of TB Engagement Session," hostedby the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

Recent tuberculosis outbreaks in the Arctic have driven the federal government and Inuit groups to come up with regional actionplans to tackle the disease.

Lesa Semmler, one of the event's organizers, said that the event will help the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) come up with theirs.

• Ottawa vows to eliminate tuberculosis in Inuit communities by 2030

"That's what is coming out of this workshop," she said."What we don't know. Because we are not being educated, or we are not talking about it," said Semmler, who is anInuvialuit Systems Navigator with IRC.

She said that about 25 people attended, including many from the regionwho have had TB, have latent TB or had loved ones with the illness.

Semmler formerly worked as a nurse and said that patients were often hesitant to seek the lengthy treatment.

She's hopeful that increasing education, combined with the new treatment option, will help eliminate the disease for good.

"Our goal in the Inuvialuit region is to eliminate that latent TB so that decreases ourrisk ... we never have an outbreak, and we aren't going to lose someone to TB."

The federal government has committed to eliminating tuberculosis in Inuit communities by2030. Corriveau says that he believes the Inuvialuit Settlement Region can do it before that deadline.