(((If you're not afraid of this, you oughta be. This isn't one of those mostly-theoretical bird-flu things; this is a plague that lays people waste in hecatombs, and you catch it by breathing.)))
Link: BBC NEWS | Health | Drug resistant TB 'at new high'.
(...)
The new survey also reveals that the virtually untreatable form of TB is now present in dozens of countries. ((("Planet of Slums.")))
MDR-TB AMONG TB CASES
Baku, Azerbaijan: 22.3%
Moldova: 19.4%
Donetsk, Ukraine: 16%
Tomsk Oblast, Russia: 15%
Tashkent, Uzbekistan: 14.8%
The figures may well be higher: many African states do not have the diagnostic tools to identify the disease, so the exact level of this often fatal form of TB remains unknown.
The WHO is calling for a major expansion in TB surveillance for treatment programmes for drug resistant tuberculosis to be scaled up.
The $5bn needed would be money well spent, says the WHO.
TB, it notes, is not "last century's disease". There were nine million new cases in 2006 alone, of which 1.7m died.
And neither is it confined to poor countries. In parts of east London, rates of TB are higher then in some developing nations.
"Dr Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO Stop TB Department, said: "TB drug resistance needs a frontal assault.
"If countries and the international community fail to address it aggressively now we will lose this battle."(...)
