India Reports Completely Drug-Resistant TB

[n2doc]

By Maryn McKenna


Well, this is a bad way to start the year.

Over the past 48 hours, news has broken in India of the existence of at least 12 patients infected with tuberculosis that has become resistant to all the drugs used against the disease. Physicians in Mumbai are calling the strain TDR, for Totally Drug-Resistant. In other words, it is untreatable as far as they know.

News of some of the cases was published Dec. 21 in an ahead-of-print letter to the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, which just about everyone missed, including me. (But not, thankfully, the hyper-alert global-health blogger Crawford Kilian, to whom I hat-tip.) That letter describes the discovery and treatment of four cases of TDR-TB since last October. On Saturday, the Times of India disclosed that there are actually 12 known cases just in one hospital, the P. D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre; in the article, Hinduja’s Dr. Amita Athawale admits, “The cases we clinically isolate are just the tip of the iceberg.” And as a followup, the Hindustan Times reported yesterday that most hospitals in the city — by extension, most Indian cities — don’t have the facilities to identify the TDR strain, making it more likely that unrecognized cases can go on to infect others.

Why this is bad news: TB is already one of the world’s worst killers, up there with malaria and HIV/AIDS, accounting for 9.4 million cases and 1.7 million deaths in 2009, according to the WHO. At the best of times, TB treatment is difficult, requiring at least 6 months of pill combinations that have unpleasant side effects and must be taken long after the patient begins to feel well.

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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/invincible-tb-india/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Contagious drug resistant disease in high density area....uggggh.

[Chemisse]

2. Very bad news, although not very surprising.

I wonder how long before it spreads to other large cities around the world.

[Warpy]

3. It's probably here

Places are going to have to dust off those old public health laws about quarantining people with active TB. Having those laws on the books and enforced with noncompliant people has given Boston one of the lowest drug resistant TB rates in the country.

Jail is jail, whether or not it's a hospital. However, it's better than going to back to what we had before we found drugs to kill it.

[laconicsax]

4. Maybe they should try exposing the TB to statins or antidepressants.

From what I hear, those things are some of the most dangerous substances ever.

[Chemisse]

5. Indeed!

And a guy I met on the train said his cousin's wife's niece cured TB with a special lung cleansing vitamin treatment.