Looming health crisis? Drug Resistant strain of TB

There seems to be a brewing disaster about to explode from South Africa to the rest of the world, and no one is even flinching. Not too long ago a lethal drug resistant strain of tuberculosis has shown its face in the small town of Tugela Ferry in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Extreme Drug Resistant or XDR TB is a frightening mutation, just as contagious as other strains of TB but virtually untreatable.

And that's exactly where the catch is. Untreatable. And today, yet another 6 possible infections were announced (diagnosed).

20 September, 2006 - Six miners from the Free State Goldfields have been diagnosed with extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (TB).

Source

Now this is hundreds of kilometres from KwaZulu-Natal, where the previous TB infections was identified. Meaning it's spreading.

And from the looks of it, there's no stopping it:

Since January of last year 270 patients have been diagnosed with multiple drug resistant TB at this hospital alone. Of those, 83 percent have died and that included 63 patients with the extreme form. Only three of those are alive today.

The only way to stop it, is containment?

So far no one is really worried about this? This may be a much bigger threat than the Bird-flu, much in the lines of SARS. Only difference is it takes much longer to spot symptoms. "Luckily" the disease is not as easily spread as with other diseases.

TB is an airborne disease so it is spread through exposure to a person who is actively sick. Such a patient would usually be coughing, and exposure needs prolonged contact.

We have found it in hospitals on the border of Mozambique, down on the border with the Eastern Cape and all over. So we know that it is there, but we don't know how many there are.

Why is the world ignoring a disease that is untreatable (or at least "Extremely Drug Resistant") and slowly but surely spreading its wings?

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