MDR Tuberculosis Control Efforts Breaking Down As Lethal S. African Strains Spread - NYT

[hatrack]

LOS ANGELES — The spread of a particularly virulent form of tuberculosis in South Africa illustrates a breakdown in the global program that is supposed to keep the disease, one of the world’s deadliest, under control. The program was intended to detect tuberculosis cases, make sure patients were taking their antibiotics, test patients for resistance to those drugs and monitor the spread of the disease.

But international tuberculosis experts say the system is in deep trouble for an array of reasons: misuse of antibiotics; other bad medical practices, like failing to segregate high-risk patients in hospitals and clinics; and cuts in government spending for such basics as adequate supplies of drugs and laboratories to do the testing.

Such factors have led to the rise of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria, a menace the world has only begun to appreciate. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the microbe that causes the disease, was discovered 125 years ago this month. Today, the bacteria infect 8.8 million people a year and cause 1.6 million deaths. They are spread in tiny droplets when patients cough. Tuberculosis is curable, as long as the bacteria are susceptible to antibiotics. It becomes deadlier when it attacks people who are also infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus. And when the tuberculosis bacteria become extremely drug-resistant, the death rate soars.

That was the case in Tugela Ferry, a rural town in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, when an outbreak of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis — XDR-TB for short — killed 52 of its 53 victims, all of whom were also infected with H.I.V. The outbreak was detected in 2005, but it did not receive international attention until it was reported at the international AIDS meeting in Toronto last August. The World Health Organization calls the extremely drug-resistant form “a grave public health threat” because of its potential explosiveness among the millions of H.I.V.-infected people in poor countries. It seems to be a lesser threat among people who do not have H.I.V., though it could be dangerous to the millions with weakened immune systems from treatment for cancer and other diseases.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/health/20docs.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[valerief]

1. Wow. Looks like Hell O'Burden is in the consumption-control biz. nt

[phantom power]

2. K+R. Yet another serious threat.