Photo: © Niklas Bergstrand/MSF
This month's Bulletin of the World Health Organization published new and preoccupying data on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). The report shows the highest global rates of MDR-TB ever reported and reveals that, in some countries - like Belarus and Moldova - more than 60 percent of patients who have previously been treated for tuberculosis came back to hospital with a drug-resistant strain. In three former Soviet Union countries (Estonia, Latvia, Tajikistan) and South Africa, more than 10 percent of the cases of MDR-TB were extensively drug-resistant. The conclusion is clear: tuberculosis is not being sufficiently well treated the first time around and one of the reasons why this is happening is the long course of multi-drug treatment each patient has to take.
WHO report is a remarkable effort to give a broad picture of MDR-TB around the wrold, but unfortunately there is lack of data in some countries (India and most of Africa, where TB prevalence is high. The report refers to 2007–2010, and assembles data of reported MDR-TB cases in 80 countries and 8 territories. This means that the effort in helping the countries to test resistant TB strains and record their findings must continue. China is a good example of success on this score: the country recently introduced a nationwide TB survey to help control the disease in its population.
About 30 percent of all new cases recorder 2007-2010 are drug-resistant, specially in Eastern Europe, Russia and Tajikistan. The report also says between 1994 and 2010, MDR-TB rates in the general population increased in Botswana, Peru, the Republic of Korea and declined in Estonia, Latvia and the United States of America.
The big challenge for the future is not only to increase the records of MDR-TB cases but also to treat the patients appropriately: in 2010, only 16 percent of MDR-TB patients were treated properly. The report also highlights the need of shorter-course drugs against tuberculosis.
read more: Surveillance of anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in the world: an updated analysis, 2007–2010
WHO report is a remarkable effort to give a broad picture of MDR-TB around the wrold, but unfortunately there is lack of data in some countries (India and most of Africa, where TB prevalence is high. The report refers to 2007–2010, and assembles data of reported MDR-TB cases in 80 countries and 8 territories. This means that the effort in helping the countries to test resistant TB strains and record their findings must continue. China is a good example of success on this score: the country recently introduced a nationwide TB survey to help control the disease in its population.
About 30 percent of all new cases recorder 2007-2010 are drug-resistant, specially in Eastern Europe, Russia and Tajikistan. The report also says between 1994 and 2010, MDR-TB rates in the general population increased in Botswana, Peru, the Republic of Korea and declined in Estonia, Latvia and the United States of America.
The big challenge for the future is not only to increase the records of MDR-TB cases but also to treat the patients appropriately: in 2010, only 16 percent of MDR-TB patients were treated properly. The report also highlights the need of shorter-course drugs against tuberculosis.
read more: Surveillance of anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in the world: an updated analysis, 2007–2010
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