Posted on 05/03/2007 2:50:19 PM PDT by happygrl
A virulent strain of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs is surfacing around the globe, raising fears of a pandemic that could devastate efforts to contain TB and prove deadly to people with immune-deficiency diseases such as HIV-AIDS.
Known formally as extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, the strain has been detected in 37 countries. It arises when the bacterium that causes TB mutates because antibiotics used to combat it are carelessly administered by poorly trained doctors or patients don't take their full course of medication. Rather than being killed by the drugs, the microbe builds up resistance to them.
At least 50 percent of those who contract this strain of TB will die of it, ... In trying to stop the spread of the disease, which can be transmitted through coughing, spitting or even speaking, health officials have imposed sometimes extreme controls on infected people.
Even in the antibiotics age, TB has remained a scourge in poorer countries and communities.... one in three people globally is estimated to be infected with dormant TB, according to the World Health Organization. Most will never get sick, but one in 10 cases the bacterium becomes active when the host's immune system is compromised. Worldwide, an estimated 1.7 million people die every year of the disease.
Two events last year alerted the medical community to a frightening new version of the disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drawing on a survey of TB labs on six continents, reported that the prevalence of the super strain of TB increased from 3 percent of patients to 11 percent between 2000 and 2004. It reached 15 percent in South Korea and 19 percent in Latvia. There are no statistics yet about the new strain in Russia, China or Africa, areas with major TB populations.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The sky is falling, the sky is falling...
“It arises when the bacterium that causes TB mutates because antibiotics used to combat it are carelessly administered by poorly trained doctors or patients don’t take their full course of medication.”
I have always loved this explanation.
After all the hard work worldwide achieved in the last century on our part and many other countries, this is the thanks we get.
It’s Bush’s fault.
This part of the article is interesting:
At least 50 percent of those who contract this strain of TB will die of it, according to medical experts. In trying to stop the spread of the disease, which can be transmitted through coughing, spitting or even speaking, health officials have imposed sometimes extreme controls on infected people.
Robert Daniels, a 27-year-old dual Russian-U.S. citizen, underwent months of treatment for TB in Russia, where he often led a homeless existence. After telling people he was feeling better, he flew from Moscow to New York on Jan. 14 last year, then on to Phoenix.
In fact, his disease had not disappeared. The microbe causing it had mutated, apparently helped by his failure to complete a drug regimen in Russia. Weeks after arriving in Phoenix, Daniels was again coughing, feeling weak and losing weight.
Doctors in Phoenix diagnosed his illness as the new resistant strain of TB. Daniels again failed to follow doctors’ orders, authorities say. So health officials got a court order, and he was locked up in the prison wing of a Phoenix hospital, where he has spent the past nine months in hermetically sealed isolation.
“It’s not right,” Daniels said in a telephone interview. “I’m not a criminal.”
I wonder if the cases increase they’ll start giving BCG vaccinations to health care workers. It is one of the indications the CDC lists for giving the vaccine. (my kid had the vaccine because we were living outside the states and it was a requirement to be admitted to school...it’s a nasty vaccine, similar to a smallpox vaccine in that it leaves a scar on the arm.)
http://www.cdc.gov/tb/pubs/tbfactsheets/bcg.htm
This is what killed my brother after he got AIDS. That was more than fifteen years ago. There is more to this story that the MSM does not want you to know.
Something else for the media to terrify the masses with.
We are so dead.
All other known diseases combined do not match it in death rates.
It is all around you, and the open border policies of our Government make you more vulnerable than you clearly believe is possible.
Illegal immigrants are infecting us regularly, every day, and the Government seems to not give a rat’s ass about it. Else they would do something more.
I love to make light of things, and I often do out here, but this is no joking matter.
From Mexico/Central America and Eastern Europe.
Keep on pretending like it’s not happening.
bookmark
A lot of people will.............
The sky is falling, the sky is falling...
Copy that, let me get my tinfoil hat
TB was almost wiped out.
It seems to me I read a story once that because homosexuals had weak immune systems and were contracting TB and not taking medications properly that this strain was growing.
Coming to a hospital near you from the land south of the border.
It’s going to be a real joy cleaning up after this mess. My guess is that the hospital bills will run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And those who bring it into our country aren’t going to have insurance and aren’t going to pay a dime for their care.
Thankfully TB is really only that devestating to the immunocompromised. That doesn’t mean this isn’t going to be a royal mess to clean up.
Unfortunately, this is a part of the problem. We are keeping people with chronic illnesses alive much longer. With chronic disease comes decreased resistance to infeceions that normal people can often fight off. When the people with a chronic illnes are exposed to the disease (like TB), their immune systems are too weak to fight it, they get the disease, and then become, essentially, petri dishes. They are infectious, contagious, and exposing the people around them to the illness for who knows how long because they simply cannot fight off the disease, even with antibiotic therapy.
My daughter, who was born overseas, also received BCG, and now has to explain, whenever she has a TB test, why she tests positive.
The extended article does indicate that HIV immunity-impaired patients are a big part of the equation.
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