Doctors Struggling to Fight 'Totally Drug-Resistant' Tuberculosis in South Africa

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles...ally-drug-resistant-tuberculosis-south-africa

Doctors Struggling to Fight 'Totally Drug-Resistant' Tuberculosis in South Africa
TB kills more people annually than any other infectious disease besides HIV

By Jason Koebler
February 11, 2013

In a patient's fight against tuberculosis?the bacterial lung disease that kills more people annually than any infectious disease besides HIV? doctors have more than 10 drugs from which to choose. Most of those didn't work for Uvistra Naidoo, a South African doctor who contracted the disease in his clinic. For those who contract the disease now, maybe none of them will.

A new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warns that the first cases of "totally drug-resistant" tuberculosis have been found in South Africa and that the disease is "virtually untreatable..."

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Doctors Struggling to Fight 'Totally Drug-Resistant' Tuberculosis in South Africa

from above link:

Volume 19, Number 3—March 2013
Research
Emergence and Spread of Extensively and Totally Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, South Africa

snip

This suggests that the atypical Beijing genotype clone is evolving toward total drug resistance (defined as in vitro resistance to all first-line drugs, as well as aminoglycosides, cyclic polypeptides, fluoroquinolones, thioamides, serine analogs, and salicylic acid derivatives [30]) with acknowledgment of WHO’s concern over the definition (31). Our molecular-based results are in accordance with a recent study from the Eastern Cape, which documented extremely poor treatment outcomes for XDR TB case-patients (12). The authors found that these patients experienced a high death rate (58.4%) and low culture-conversion rates (8.4%) over a follow-up period of 143 days. They concluded that only 1.7 drugs per patient could be regarded as “effective” on the basis of DST results, previous treatment records, or both. Given that this study was conducted concurrently with ours, it is highly likely that a large proportion of their patients were also infected with XDR TB strains with an atypical Beijing genotype. Thus, the poor treatment outcome may be related to the extent of drug-resistance; however, we cannot exclude the possibility that the atypical Beijing genotype contributes to illness and death. A further concern is the knowledge that this clone is now spreading to other provinces in South Africa, possibly due to migration. In Western Cape Province, an estimated 55% of XDR TB case-patients harbor isolates with the atypical Beijing genotype (32).

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/3/12-0246_article.htm

 

[Emily]

Re: Doctors Struggling to Fight 'Totally Drug-Resistant' Tuberculosis in South Africa

The side effects of current medications can be very bad, as described by a doctor who battled a case for 3 years:

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/health/doctors-warn-world-could-face-outbreak-drug-resistant-tuberculosis#

Doctors Warn World Could Face Outbreak of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
By Ashley Davis, Mon, February 11, 2013
[snip]
Dr. Uvistra Naidoo, who treats those stricken with TB, caught the multi drug-resistant disease but fought it after undergoing a cocktail of powerful drugs. These drugs gave him life-threatening side effects and it took him three years to beat.

He contracted Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a complication that causes skin layers to separate and bleed. He frequently bled from his eyes.

?The TB doesn?t feel like it?s killing you, but the drugs do,? he said. ?My case was three years long. I don?t think the average patient has that kind of patience.?...