Rates of Drug-Resistant TB Growing
A new briefing paper from Doctors Without Borders calls the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis the “biggest threat to global health you’ve never heard of.”
Standard strains of TB, an infection of the lungs caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, impact nearly 8 million people each year.
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Because of an “inadequate global response,” drug-resistant strains of the disease have been allowed to spread, with half a million new cases diagnosed every year.
Standard TB treatment methods are ineffective against these strains, making complex and expensive treatments necessary. Even these methods, consisting of 2 years of daily injections and over 10,000 pills, will only cure half of the infected patients each year.
Long-term treatment is toxic for patients, leaving many with permanent hearing loss and psychosis.
“The DR-TB crisis is everybody’s problem and demands an immediate international response,” said Sidney Wong, MD, medical director of Doctors Without Borders, in a press release.
Recently, 2 new drugs have been release, but have yet to be tested in combination with other drugs. These drugs, the first of their kind in 40 years, are years away from making a difference.
Doctors Without Borders has called upon governments, pharmaceutical companies, and researchers to develop shorter, safer treatment methods to avert this health crisis.
–Michael Potts
- MSF Crisis Alert: The new face of an old disease: urgent action needed to tackle global drug-resistant TB threat. March 2014. Doctors Without Borders. http://www.msf.org.uk/sites/uk/files/msf_crisis_alert_dr-tb_final.pdf
- Drug-resistant tuberculosis: The biggest threat to global health you've never heard of [press release]. March 17, 2014.