Treatment of tuberculosis: use of active pharmaceuticals

Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly infectious disease caused by several species of mycobacteria. Multi drug resistant strains of mycobacteria leading to the increase of patient world wide. There is an urgent need for new effective antimicrobial agent to replace those currently in use because of highly toxic. Screening methods available for discovering new chemical entities active against the resistant strains are detailed. The plant origin antimicrobial agents are the valuable anti tubercular drugs. The present review of patent stated several findings from an extensive literature search of semi synthetic, synthetic and natural plants that have been assessed for the antimicrobial activity over 20 years. An attempt has been made to summarize the information in order to highlight those chemical entities and plant species which are of worthy for further investigation as leads to the drug developments. Over 150 chemical entities of semi synthetic and synthetic and over 350 plant species from wide range of families containing various chemical classes of compounds have been cited here which are worthy for the researchers and the industrialist concerned to tuberculosis. The present review includes some patents relevant to the treatment of tuberculosis.