After swine flu, drug-resistant tuberculosis stares at world health

After the swine flu, now it is the turn of TB to hit the world health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that a global pandemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) may be imminent, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

"The situation is already alarming, and poised to grow much worse very quickly," WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan is reported to have said. "This is a situation set to spiral out of control. Call it what you may: a time bomb or a powder keg. Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation," Chan is learnt to have warned.

TB is a highly contagious disease of the lungs that infects 9 million people around the world each year, killing 2 million of them. The bacteria that cause the disease thrive in dark, damp places, and can be spread from person to person by a simple cough, sneeze or conversation. An untreated TB patient can infect between 10 and 15 other people with the disease in a single year.

Although TB has been mostly eliminated in wealthy countries and can be treated in poor countries if appropriate antibiotics are available, the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant strains has the disease poised to re-emerge as a major global health threat.

Because TB treatment requires taking large numbers of pills daily for up to 6 months, many people do not complete their treatment, leading to the evolution of drug-resistant varieties.

Multi-drug-resistant TB -- any strain that is resistant to both front-line TB drugs-- is already a major health problem throughout the world, particularly in Bangladesh, China, India, South Africa and Russia. Even more alarming, 54 countries have already reported cases of extensively drug-resistant TB, or a variety that is resistant to all known TB drugs.