WHO warns of TB world disaster
Pastor Dale Morgan
*WHO warns of TB world disaster*
08 Nov 2007 18:27:35 GMT
Source: Reuters
CAPE TOWN, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The world is at risk of a tuberculosis
crisis if killer drug-resistant strains of the disease are not
contained, a senior World Health Organisation official warned on Thursday.
"Scenarios of apocalyptic nature are not, let's say, likely, but they
might happen. They are not... impossible," said Mario Raviglione,
director of the World Health Organisation's Stop TB department.
"Globally speaking about 96 percent of all TB cases are still treatable
with the four drugs that we use in the standard regimen, 4 percent are
multi-drug resistant ... but the worst case scenario is when this 4
percent becomes 50, 60, 70, 80 percent," he told reporters at a
conference in Cape Town.
Raviglione said a worst case scenario would see multi- and extensively
drug resistant TB overtake cases of ordinary TB, which can still be
cured with older but effective drugs.
Multi- and extensively drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB and XDR-TB) are
mutations of common TB virtually immune to all treatments. Raviglione
said some countries in the former Soviet Union were showing an MDR-TB
incidence of up to 20 percent, while some European states showed
resistance to all second-line TB drugs -- the most powerful in an
increasingly ineffective drug arsenal.
Outlining the seriousness of the emerging drug resistance, Raviglione
said the situation in some European countries reminded health officials
of the "pre-antibiotic era" of 1943.
He said Russia, China, India and South Africa were the four countries
worst-hit with MDR-TB and XDR-TB, accounting for up to 60 percent of the
world's cases.
The emergence of drug-resistant TB strains, coupled with a deadly
co-infection of TB and HIV, has alarmed health authorities who are
uniting to head off a global TB crisis.
On Thursday, hundreds of activists and TB experts attending the 38th
Union World Conference on Lung Health marched through Cape Town's city
centre to draw attention to the disease, easily spread during close
personal contact.
Experts agree that underfunding, outdated drugs, a lack of new vaccines
and poor diagnostics for TB are hampering treatment, leading to higher
and faster mortality rates, especially among those infected with both TB
and HIV.
"The XDR epidemic has simply exposed the limitations of the current
tools used to control TB ... New diagnostics and hopefully a new vaccine
are fundamental items that we have to push through as a global
community," Raviglione said. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by
Michael Winfrey)