Scientists warn world faces TB epidemic as disease ‘is becoming drug resistant’

THE world is facing a tuberculosis epidemic on an “unprecedented scale”, scientists have warned.

Drug-resistant strains are threatening to “derail decades of progress”.

TB killed 1.8million people in 2015 with 60 per cent of fatalities coming in just six countries.

One-in-five cases are now resistant to at least one major drug and five percent classed as MDR – resistant to the two most powerful isoniazid and rifampicin – or XDR which are also resistant to fluoroquinolones and second line injectable drugs.

Professor Keertan Dheda, of Cape Town University, said: “Resistance to anti-tuberculosis drugs is a global problem that threatens to derail efforts to eradicate the disease.

“Even when the drugs work, TB is difficult to cure and requires months of treatment with a cocktail of drugs.

“When resistance occurs the treatment can take years and the drugs used have unpleasant and sometimes serious side effects.

“Cure rates for drug resistant TB are poor and people can remain infectious and at risk of spreading the disease.”

The new study said new drugs have recently become available to treat drug-resistant TB.

But without improved efforts to control the spread of the disease the drugs could be worthless.

Globally in 2015 there were an estimated 480,000 cases of MDR-TB – with about half in India, China and Russia.

But, migration and travel mean that highly drug-resistant TB strains have emerged in almost every part of the world.

Drug-resistant TB is a threat to health-care workers, expensive to treat and a serious public health problem.

The mortality rate is extremely high at around 40% for patients with MDR-TB and 60% for patients with XDR-TB.

The World Health Organisation has warned multidrug-resistant TB is at ‘crisis levels’.