News

16th March 2004

Action needed to prevent the spread of multi drug-resistant tuberculosis

A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), published in Brussels today, reveals Tuberculosis patients in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are 10 times more likely to have multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) than in the rest of the world.

The study of the deadly infectious disease identifies Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, parts of the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan as places where the number of new TB patients with the drug resistance strain is as high as 14%. China, Ecuador, Israel and South Africa are also identified as key areas. Highest prevalence of MDR-TB coincides with one of the world’s fastest growing HIV infection rates in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The WHO estimate there are 300,000 new cases of MDR-TB world-wide, with 79% of cases being "super strains", resistant to at least three of the four main drugs used to cure TB. Curing ‘normal’ TB is cheap and effective - a six-month course of medicines costs around £5.50, treating drug resistant TB is a hundred times more expensive.

The United Nations Development Programme has recently reported that there are more than 1.5 million people living with the virus in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, compared to just 30,000 in 1995. People whose immune systems are compromised with HIV are many times more susceptible to contracting all forms of TB.

Dr Mohamed Aziz, WHO Technical expert and leading author of the report said:

"The more we survey, the more MDR-TB we find. It has now been identified in every region and almost every country surveyed in what is the largest drug resistance surveillance project of its kind. Yet the true burden is unknown and may well be higher in unsurveyed areas, stressing the need for full expansion of drug resistance surveillance."

John Bowis MEP, UK Conservative Health Spokesman in the European Parliament said:

"Drug resistant TB is already a major problem in the UK. Multi drug resistant TB is rampant in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States to whom in May we open our EU and UK borders. It is urgent that we act nationally to protect our citizens from this new health scourge."

Notes:

The WHO's report 'Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance in the World - Third Global Report' presents data from the examination of 67,657 TB patients in 77 countries and regions.