WHO predicts over 2 million new cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis by 2015

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WHO predicts over 2 million new cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis by 2015

By Jordans, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – 42 minutes ago

GENEVA - Over two million people will contract a form of tuberculosis by 2015

that is difficult to treat, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands worldwide will die from multi-drug-resistant strains of

tuberculosis during that period unless greater efforts are made to properly

diagnose all patients and provide them with correct medication, said

Raviglione, the director of WHO's Stop TB department

The warning came as an alliance of international health groups laid out their

multi-billion-dollar plan to contain the spread of tuberculosis, a bacterial

disease that usually affects the lungs.

" Overall progress is being made, but the response is far from sufficient given

the MDR-TB threat that the world is facing, " Raviglione said. " The commitments

by some countries are too slow off the mark, or simply stalled. "

Some countries in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are successfully

reducing infection rates with aggressive detection and treatment programs,

Raviglione said. But elsewhere the lack of proper screening for MDR-TB means

many sufferers are going undiagnosed, let alone properly treated, increasing the

risk that they will spread the disease to others.

Giving patients with multi-drug-resistant TB the wrong medication risks creating

an even more dangerous form of tuberculosis called extensive drug-resistant TB.

WHO estimates that some 25,000 people are contracting XDR-TB each year,

requiring more expensive and toxic drugs with less chance of survival.

___

Online:

Stop TB report: http://www.stoptb.org/global/plan/