The World Health Organization (WHO) published their largest survey ever on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) on Tuesday. In summary, MDR-TB is more prevalent, and more in need of control, than ever.

“TB drug resistance needs a frontal assault. If countries and the international community fail to address it aggressively now we will lose this battle,” said Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department. “In addition to specifically confronting drug-resistant TB and saving lives, programmes worldwide must immediately improve their performance in diagnosing all TB cases rapidly and treating them until cured, which is the best way to prevent the development of drug resistance.”

Read the full study here, some key findings below:

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• The WHO estimates that there are nearly 500,000 new cases of MDR-TB each year, about 5% of the approximately 9 million new cases of regular TB per year
• The highest rates of MDR-TB were found in countries in the former Soviet Union and China. China and India carry about half the global burden of MDR-TB and the former Soviet states another 7%. Rwanda had a noticeably high percentage of MDR-TB cases among TB patients (3.9%), but data on MDR-TB presence in Africa was rather limited in the study.
• Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), a virtually untreatable form of TB, has been recorded in 45 countries.
• Surveys in Latvia and the Ukraine found nearly twice the level of MDR-TB among TB patients living with HIV compared to those without. In South Africa, 44% of TB patients are estimated to be co-infected with HIV.
• MDR-TB and XDR-TB are progressively more expensive and difficult to treat.

The WHO estimates that $4.8 billion is needed for overall TB control in low and middle income countries in 2008, with $1 billion for MDR-TB and XDR-TB. There is a total finance gap for 2008 of $ 2.5 billion, including a $ 500 million gap for MDR-TB and XDR-TB.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB), World Health Organization, Tuberculosis (TB). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.