What Happens When TB Becomes Untreatable?
01 February 2012
A woman suffering from tuberculosis covers her face at a clinic in the township of Khayelitsha, on the edge of Cape Town, South Africa, last year
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
In December, doctors in Mumbai, India, reported about a group of patients with what they called "totally drug-resistant" tuberculosis. Indian health officials have been investigating these cases. But there have been reports of untreatable cases of TB in the past. Doctors reported fifteen patients in Iran in two thousand nine and two patients in Italy in two thousand seven.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that usually targets the lungs. It causes an estimated five thousand deaths each day, or about two million a year.
TB can be spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes or even speaks.
Some forms of TB bacteria no longer react to one or more of the antibiotics commonly used to cure the disease. These are known as drug-resistant strains. Some resist even more drugs. The World Health Organization says sixty-nine countries have reported cases of "extensively drug-resistant" tuberculosis. The WHO says at least twenty-five thousand such cases are reported worldwide every year.
The agency's director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, is concerned about the spread of drug-resistant TB.
MARGARET CHAN: "Call it what you may, a time bomb or a powder keg. Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation."
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25