Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
South Africa: Deadly TB Found in All Nine Provinces of SA
http://allafrica.com/stories/200610180119.html
Scientists' suspicions that the deadly new strain of extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) first identified in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year is circulating in all nine provinces have been confirmed by the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS), it emerged yesterday.
The disease has public health experts around the world deeply worried, as it poses a severe risk to people infected with HIV.
XDR-TB first hit the headlines two months ago, when scientists told the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto that a devastating outbreak of the disease in rural KwaZulu-Natal had killed all but one of the 53 patients they had identified. All were HIV-positive.
Since then a total of 78 patients have been confirmed with XDR-TB in the province, 74 of whom have died. Another nine cases have been identified in Gauteng, 10 in North West, six in Eastern Cape and three in Limpopo, according to health department director-general Thami Mseleku.
However, scientists were still in the dark as to what proportion of suspected TB patients were infected with XDR-TB, the Medical Research Council's (MRC's) Karin Weyer told Business Day.
Speaking by telephone from the sidelines of a two-day meeting on XDR-TB convened by the health department, Weyer said the NHLS had analysed samples from suspected TB patients.
Provinces were about to begin detailed studies to determine the extent of the disease, she said.
Weyer said hospitals urgently needed to improve their infection- control measures to protect staff and patients from contracting the disease within facilities.
"Infection control in many public hospitals is either inadequate or nonexistent," she said.
A high proportion of the XDR-TB cases studied in KwaZulu-Natal are believed to have arisen from in-hospital transmission.
Yesterday's meeting included experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the MRC, and the Southern African Development Community.
It builds on an emergency meeting in Johannesburg last month, and the new WHO task group on XDR-TB's first meeting in Geneva last week.
A statement issued by the WHO task group yesterday described the emergence of XDR-TB as a "serious threat to public health, particularly when associated with HIV".
Mseleku strove to reassure the public, saying there was limited evidence of outbreaks of XDR-TB within communities.
"XDR-TB is not an epidemic (in SA)," he said.
The public sector needed to urgently improve its TB control programmes, he said, conceding many patients failed to complete their course of medication.
About 250000 new TB cases are diagnosed in SA each year, of which only about 53% are cured.
Patients who do not finish, or interrupt, their drug treatment risk developing multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, which can be spread to uninfected people.
The emergence of XDR-TB follows a similar pattern, so improving TB control is regarded by experts as essential for combating the emergence of drug-resistant strains.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200610180119.html
Tamar Kahn
Cape Town
Cape Town
Scientists' suspicions that the deadly new strain of extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) first identified in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year is circulating in all nine provinces have been confirmed by the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS), it emerged yesterday.
The disease has public health experts around the world deeply worried, as it poses a severe risk to people infected with HIV.
XDR-TB first hit the headlines two months ago, when scientists told the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto that a devastating outbreak of the disease in rural KwaZulu-Natal had killed all but one of the 53 patients they had identified. All were HIV-positive.
Since then a total of 78 patients have been confirmed with XDR-TB in the province, 74 of whom have died. Another nine cases have been identified in Gauteng, 10 in North West, six in Eastern Cape and three in Limpopo, according to health department director-general Thami Mseleku.
However, scientists were still in the dark as to what proportion of suspected TB patients were infected with XDR-TB, the Medical Research Council's (MRC's) Karin Weyer told Business Day.
Speaking by telephone from the sidelines of a two-day meeting on XDR-TB convened by the health department, Weyer said the NHLS had analysed samples from suspected TB patients.
Provinces were about to begin detailed studies to determine the extent of the disease, she said.
Weyer said hospitals urgently needed to improve their infection- control measures to protect staff and patients from contracting the disease within facilities.
"Infection control in many public hospitals is either inadequate or nonexistent," she said.
A high proportion of the XDR-TB cases studied in KwaZulu-Natal are believed to have arisen from in-hospital transmission.
Yesterday's meeting included experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the MRC, and the Southern African Development Community.
It builds on an emergency meeting in Johannesburg last month, and the new WHO task group on XDR-TB's first meeting in Geneva last week.
A statement issued by the WHO task group yesterday described the emergence of XDR-TB as a "serious threat to public health, particularly when associated with HIV".
Mseleku strove to reassure the public, saying there was limited evidence of outbreaks of XDR-TB within communities.
"XDR-TB is not an epidemic (in SA)," he said.
The public sector needed to urgently improve its TB control programmes, he said, conceding many patients failed to complete their course of medication.
About 250000 new TB cases are diagnosed in SA each year, of which only about 53% are cured.
Patients who do not finish, or interrupt, their drug treatment risk developing multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, which can be spread to uninfected people.
The emergence of XDR-TB follows a similar pattern, so improving TB control is regarded by experts as essential for combating the emergence of drug-resistant strains.