Talking to mediapersons here today, Dr Jha said that the new drug "Aminosidine" was approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research, Drug Controller and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It has a success rate of about 95 per cent and is safe and cost-effective.

Bihar has about one lakh kala-azar patients, Dr Jha said, adding that the available medicines failed to cure even about 40 per cent of them. Of them, about 30,000 were resistant cases while more than two per cent of the patients died due to side-effects of the drugs, he added.

The trial of the new drug was done at Kala-Azar Research Centre, Muzaffarpur, in collaboration with different international organisations, including WHO. The test was conducted on 120 patients, dividing them into four groups. Dr Jha said that three groups were treated with three differentdosage schedules of Aminosidine and one group was treated with the existing first line drug, Sodium Stibogluconate. After six months of treatment, the cure rate with Aminosidine was nearly 95 per cent.