English 
Francais 
عربي 
TB – drug resistance on the increase in the East!
[mis à jour le 5 May 2009 à 16h53]
Cases of multidrug resistant tuberculosis are on the increase in countries of the former Soviet Union, in China and in India. This phenomenon which appeared a few years ago is turning into a genuine epidemic: 500,000 new cases were recorded in 2006 alone... and the WHO is alarmed.
The former Soviet states are facing a worrying development of pharmacoresistance. There has not been such a high prevalence since an epidemiological watch was set up in 1996. This is true of Azerbaijan where 22% of new cases reported between 2002 and 2007 were even resistant to second line antibiotics …Which makes these patients difficult or even impossible to treat.
The situation is no less worrying in China. Together, China and India account for no fewer than 50% of new cases of multidrug resistant TB! These figures are the alarming results of a study conducted on 90,000 patients from 83 countries in Europe and Asia. Africa, on the other hand, has not been included in this study, yet it is one of the continents most hard hit by TB, with 20 million cases. Thousands of sufferers develop resistance each year due to failure to observe treatment correctly.
Print this article
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Send to a friend
Convert to pdf
Copyright Authorization
9 article(s)
Tuberculosis: monitoring every patient
Tuberculosis – hope does battle with concern
Europe now has its Berlin Declaration against TB
Tuberculosis: the bacillus is becoming increasingly resistant to treatment!
Smoking leaves us more vulnerable to tuberculosis
Will tuberculosis become incurable?
