Cyclone raises tuberculosis risks in Myanmar: WHO
Pastor Dale Morgan
Cyclone raises tuberculosis risks in Myanmar: WHO*
By Laura MacInnis
Reuters
Tuesday, June 10, 2008; 12:48 PM
GENEVA (Reuters) - The cyclone that devastated Myanmar last month forced
many tuberculosis sufferers to stop their treatment, triggering fears of
drug-resistant strains spreading, the World Health Organization (WHO)
said on Tuesday.
Myanmar had 83,000 cases of the highly contagious disease in 2006
causing 6,000 deaths, according to the WHO's most recent figures for the
diplomatically isolated country whose army rulers were initially
reluctant to let in foreign aid workers after Cyclone Nargis hit on May 2.
The storm killed up to 134,000 people, left 2.4 million destitute, and
destroyed many of the health centers which handed out antibiotics.
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said experts from the United Nations agency
would travel to cyclone-affected areas this week to track down
tuberculosis patients who lost access to their drugs since the May 2 storm.
"They will go to the hospitals and health centers, look at the records,
look how many people were on treatment, and then try to trace them in
villages and camps," Chaib said, calling the hiatus resulting from the
storm "a serious issue."
"Tuberculosis is a life-threatening disease. Interrupting a course of
six-month treatment can have an effect on creating resistance to
tuberculosis drugs," she said.
Any pause in a course of antibiotics can give the bacterium causing
tuberculosis a chance to mutate and build up immunity to standard
medicines. Drug-resistant strains can require patients to take an
expensive and arduous course of pills and injections, and some types are
virtually untreatable.
Even before the cyclone, the weak health system and pervasiveness of
fake drugs in Myanmar were seen as potential triggers for drug-resistant
tuberculosis.
While no cases of "extensively drug-resistant" or "XDR" tuberculosis
have been confirmed by the WHO in Myanmar, aid workers from Medicins
Sans Frontieres last year reported cases among migrants from Myanmar in
neighboring Thailand, raising concerns that it may already exist in the
secretive state.
Chaib said authorities in Myanmar had worked hard with the WHO in recent
years to fight the respiratory disease, which spreads through the air
and kills about 1.5 million people worldwide every year.
In addition to tracking patients and helping them resume treatment, WHO
staff deployed to Myanmar's cyclone-affected region will also seek to
bolster general health services for those displaced by the storm.
The WHO is appealing for clean water and sanitation supplies to help
reduce the risks of water-borne diseases among cyclone survivors. With
the monsoon season coming, the U.N. agency said it was also critical for
Myanmar to take steps to prevent malaria and other diseases spread by
mosquitoes.
(Editing by Caroline Drees)