China faces a “serious epidemic” of drug-resistant tuberculosis according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of the size of the problem there, a US-published study said on Wednesday.
“In 2007, one third of the patients with new cases of tuberculosis and one half of the patients with previously treated tuberculosis had drug-resistant disease,” the study in the New England Journal of Medicine said.
Even more, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis in new cases (5.7 percent) was nearly twice the global average, the study said.
Using WHO figures as a basis for comparison, “China has the highest annual number of cases of MDR tuberculosis in the world — a quarter of the cases worldwide,” it added. “China has a serious epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis.”
The data came from a survey of more than 4,600 Chinese people who were recently diagnosed or treated for tuberculosis.
Patients for the study were treated at local tuberculosis clinics, not hospitals, and the survey was conducted by the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control.
According to an accompanying editorial by Johns Hopkins University infectious disease specialist Richard Chaisson, the growth of drug-resistant tuberculosis presents an “enormous challenge.”
Even more concerning was the finding that most of the 110,000 drug-resistant cases were in people newly diagnosed with the disease, suggesting that the virulent bacteria are being transmitted from person to person and not developing solely as a result of a person prematurely stopping treatment.
“MDR tuberculosis is linked to inadequate treatment in both the public health system and the hospital system, especially tuberculosis hospitals; however, primary transmission accounts for most cases,” the study said.
Chaisson said the findings highlight the need for faster testing, and for new cases of tuberculosis to be tested for signs of drug resistance, not just recurrent forms.
In China, over one million new tuberculosis infections occur each year — a large chunk of the estimated nine million new cases worldwide annually.
The disease spreads through the air when infected people cough up bacteria. It kills about 1.5 million people worldwide each year.
Often it can be cured with antibiotics, though drug availability is limited in the developing world and sometimes patients do not follow the entire regimen of treatment, which can encourage the development of resistant strains.
The study was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Health.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS