How a made-in-India antibiotic opens new front against superbugs

Sathyamurthy R was in his mid-30s when he was finally cured of tuberculosis. Then came the bad news: he had lost his hearing. In the early 2000s, many patients like him survived tuberculosis. The antibiotic streptomycin, used alongside a cocktail of other drugs, cleared infection from their lungs but also destroyed delicate inner ear cells, making hearing loss permanent.