Russia's drug-resistant TB spreading more easily

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.nature.com/news/russia-s-...easily-1.14589


Russia's drug-resistant TB spreading more easily
Newly discovered mutations help tuberculosis to stay infectious while evolving resistance to multiple drugs.
Ewen Callaway
26 January 2014

Bacterial 'superbugs' are getting ever more potent. Tuberculosis (TB) strains in Russia carry mutations that not only make them resistant to antibiotics but also help them to spread more effectively, according to an analysis of 1,000 genomes from different TB isolates ? the largest whole-genome study of a single bacterial species so far...

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Russia's drug-resistant TB spreading more easily

Drug-resistant Tuberculosis Spreading Fast in Russia, Say Scientists

by Sheela Philomena on January 27, 2014


In Russia, tuberculosis strains carry mutations that not only make them resistant to antibiotics but also help them spread more effectively, find scientists.

The latest study of TB cases in Russia indicates that rampant drug resistance may not be the only explanation for the TB rise in the region - biological factors also play a major role in it.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London analysed 1,000 genomes from different TB isolates - the largest whole-genome study of a single bacterial species so far.

This enabled the team to identify previously unknown mutations linked to antibiotic resistance, as well as "compensatory mutations" that improve the ability of drug-resistant TB to spread.

Nearly half of the TB isolates were multi-drug resistant, which means that they were impervious to the two common first-line antibiotics that cure most TB infections.

Sixteen percent of these isolates also harboured mutations that made them impervious to "second-line" drugs.

These infections are more expensive to treat and patients who receive ineffective drugs are more likely to spread TB, said the research published in the journal Nature Genetics.

TB, which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, exploded in Russia and other former Soviet nations in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its health system.

Read more: Drug-resistant Tuberculosis Spreading Fast in Russia, Say Scientists | Medindia http://www.medindia.net/news/drug-re...#ixzz2rbQv52QN