Super TB strain threatens 'uncontrollable' epidemic
Pastor Dale Morgan
Super TB strain threatens 'uncontrollable' epidemic*
06 Mar 2007 18:04:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA, March 6 (Reuters) - Extremely drug-resistant strains of
tuberculosis could spark a "practically uncontrollable" epidemic among
HIV/AIDS sufferers in areas like Africa, a World Health Organisation
(WHO) official said on Tuesday.
Mario Raviglione, director of the United Nations agency's Stop TB
Department, said health experts needed to ensure a recently discovered
strain -- known as XDR-TB -- did not trigger a wave of infections among
those with weak immune systems.
He said better diagnostic tools and improved health care procedures --
including isolation rooms for those afflicted with the highly contagious
bug -- were vital to stop its spread.
"If all the elements of good TB control are put in place, we have a
chance of taking care of this disease," the Italian doctor said in an
interview at the WHO's headquarters.
"If we let the situation ... with XDR go out of control, as it might
well do, then we are in trouble. All of our gains over the last 10 years
in controlling TB would be lost."
Tuberculosis, an airborne disease spread like the common cold, afflicts
about 9 million people each year and kills 1.6 million. It is normally
treatable with antibiotics but drug-resistant strains have emerged in
past years, complicating a U.N.-backed drive to stop the spread of the
disease by 2015.
More than 400,000 people were found in 2004 to have developed
"multi-drug resistant" strains that could not be treated with at least
two key first-line tuberculosis drugs, with most cases in China, India
and Russia.
XDR-TB, a "super bug" which resists three or more classes of second-line
tuberculosis drugs, has been identified in 28 countries worldwide, with
cases concentrated in the United States, Latvia and South Korea.
In South Africa, the XDR strain has killed nearly 200 people since
September, mainly HIV patients unable to fend it off.
Raviglione said the strain could cause widespread deaths among those
with HIV/AIDS, given their susceptibility to tuberculosis and the
difficulty in treating it.
"Either we intervene rapidly to stop the spread of this strain, or you
could foresee in the future that this strain would replace the other
one," he said. "That would make it practically uncontrollable."
New antibiotics and drugs to fight XDR-TB could take more than five
years to reach the market, Raviglione said, so countries needed to boost
their laboratory capacities to quickly identify which patients have
drug-resistant TB strains.
"In South Africa they are capable, that is why they discovered it. But
we don't know what's happening in Mozambique, in Lesotho, in Swaziland,
in Zimbabwe," he said, noting it was possible the strain was more
widespread in the region.
Africa accounted for most of the world's tuberculosis deaths in 2004,
followed by southeast Asia, according to WHO data.