Disease experts called yesterday for decisive leadership and more research funding to fend off the “very real” risk of an untreatable strain of tuberculosis (TB) emerging as more and more people develop resistance to existing drugs.
In a series of papers in the Lancet medical journal to mark World TB Day yesterday, they warned that health systems risked being overwhelmed by increasing numbers of drug-resistant TB patients.
Already, more than 30 percent of newly diagnosed patients in parts of eastern Europe and central Asia have multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, a form of the disease which does not respond to the two most potent drugs — isoniazid and rifampin.
Photo: EPA
There were believed to be about 630,000 MDR cases out of about 12 million TB cases in 2011.
Extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB, thus far reported in 84 countries, does not respond to an even wider range of drugs.
“The widespread emergence of XDR tuberculosis could lead to virtually untreatable tuberculosis,” wrote the authors of one study, led by Alimuddin Zumla, director of the Centre for Infectious Diseases and International Health at University College London Medical School.
“With ease of international travel and increased rates of MDR tuberculosis ... the threat and range of the spread of untreatable tuberculosis is very real,” they said.
EMERGENCY
TB was declared a global health emergency by the WHO 20 years ago, but remains a leading cause of death by an infectious disease.
On its Web site, the UN agency says at least US$1.6 billion is needed annually to prevent the spread of the disease. For their part, the study authors urged “a radical change in political and scientific thinking.”
“The global economic crisis and reduced investments in health services threaten national tuberculosis programs and the gains made in global tuberculosis control,” they wrote. “The world needs to acknowledge the serious threat of drug-resistant tuberculosis before it overwhelms health systems.”
Most needed are new drugs and better, quicker diagnostic tools. In 2011, 8.7 million people fell ill with TB and 1.4 million died, the WHO said.
More than 95 percent of TB deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, and it is among the top three causes of death for women aged 15 to 44.
In 2010, there were about 10 million orphans who had lost their parents to TB.
It is also a leading killer of people with HIV.
The death rate did drop by 41 percent between 1990 and 2011, according to the WHO, which says the world is on course to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reversing the spread of TB by 2015.
“We have gained a lot of ground in TB, but it can easily be lost if we do not act now,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍), said in a statement.
An airborne disease of the lungs, tuberculosis is usually treatable with a six-month course of antibiotics.
It is spread from person to person through the air and usually affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body such as the brain and kidneys.
BACTERIA
Resistance to TB drugs develops when treatment fails to kill the bacteria that causes it — either because the patient fails to follow their prescribed dosages or the drug does not work.
It can also be contracted through rare forms of the disease that are directly transmissible from person to person.
MDR TB in the US can cost as much as US$250,000 per patient to treat.
XDR TB requires about two years of treatment with even more expensive drugs that often cause side-effects and offer no guarantee of a cure.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS