E-DRUG: new TB superbug discovered in SA
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[This is worrying news: a new TB strain that is resistant to almost all
first-line TB-drugs has been found in South Africa. Anybody in SA some info
which antibiotics this superbug still is sensitive to? Will this become the
new "TB-SARS" scare? Crossposted from DRUGINFO. Copied as fair use.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20031112095906388C960815
&set_id=1 WB]
Tuberculosis 'superbug' hits Western Cape
Cape Argus
November 12 2003 at 09:59AM
By Di Caelers
Scientists have sounded the alarm over Tuberculosis "superbugs" stalking
communities across the Western Cape that could wreak health havoc throughout
South Africa.
One variant, called DRF150, is resistant to almost all the front-line
antibiotics used to treat drug-resistant TB, which means hundreds of
thousands of rands may be needed to bring the mini-epidemic under control.
The new strain has its epicentre in George, where 60 patients are affected,
but another 20 cases or so have also been found in Worcester, Villiersdorp
and the northern areas of Cape Town.
A few cases have been isolated in Mpumalanga and in Nairobi, Kenya.
The emerging mutant strain, which has not been identified anywhere else in
the world, brings a formidable new enemy into the Western Cape's battle with
tuberculosis prevalence that is already at record levels.
It poses a serious threat for both local and national health authorities,
according to Professor Tommie Victor, the specialist who identified it.
Victor, professor of medical biochemistry in Stellenbosch University's
Faculty of Health Sciences, said the new TB threat had been identified by a
committed group of health-care workers, scientists, clinicians and nurses.
The Victor team's findings have been published in the European International
Journal of Tubercle and Lung Disease, and have been accepted for publication
in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in the United States.
According to the study findings, which analysed data from 72 clinics in the
Boland, Overberg and Karoo regions, more than 60 percent of drug-
resistant TB is being transmitted from person to person.
Until now, usually drug-resistant TB occurred in people who did not take
their TB medication regularly.
Previously, the drug-resistant TB that has most worried health authorities
has been the Beijing/W strain, which emerged in New York in 1995 and cost
millions of dollars to bring under control.
The Stellenbosch study also found the Beijing/W drug-resistant strain of TB
in patients attending most of the clinics they examined.
Pointing to the astronomical expense of treating drug-resistant TB, Victor
said treating ordinary TB cost about R200 per patient for a six-month
course. In the case of drug-resistant TB, that spiralled to between R25 000
and R30 000, and the treatment period required was tripled to 18 months.
The Stellenbosch group has come up with a new method of identifying
drug-resistant TB in 12 days, much shorter than the usual two months of
testing required - a delay which Victor said could be partly to blame for
its spread.
"The problem traditionally is that the bacterium grows very slowly, so
people were only getting a diagnosis on drug resistance about two months
after being tested.
"In that time, they (those infected) were out there in communities spreading
the disease," he said.
This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Argus on
November 12, 2003
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