WHO strategy to stop drug-resistant TB

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical WriterThu Jun 21, 6:56 PM ET
More than 130,000 lives could be saved if the world implements a two-year strategy to stop the growing problem of drug-resistant tuberculosis, the World Health Organization and partners said Thursday.
Officials are concerned that the current epidemic of curable TB might evolve into a drug-resistant variety immune to existing medicines.
"It would be very scary if that happened," said Dr. Ruth McNerney, an infectious diseases expert at London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Tuberculosis would then turn into what it was centuries ago when it was Europe's biggest killer and wiped out generations of people."
The new plan from WHO and the Stop TB Partnership outlines actions they say are needed to slow the spread of multi-drug resistant TB and extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB.
Drug-resistant TB is primarily a problem in Asia, Africa and eastern Europe, despite the recent trans-Atlantic health scare sparked by Andrew Speaker, an American with XDR-TB who flew to several countries despite being infected.
WHO estimates that $2.15 billion is needed over the next two years to help poor countries tackle issues including disease surveillance, diagnosis and treatment. So far, the health agency says it has about $640 million.
"We're extremely concerned about multi-drug resistant tuberculosis because we've already got more than 400,000 cases occurring every year," said Dr. Paul Nunn, WHO's tuberculosis, HIV and drug-resistance coordinator.
It is also much more expensive to treat resistant TB. Treating regular tuberculosis costs as little as $16 for six months per patient. But it costs up to $15,000 to treat one XDR-TB case for several years — with no guarantee of a cure.
Though experts say WHO's strategy is a good start, they are unsure how much of a difference it will ultimately make.
"We can try to control the damage that we see today from drug-resistant TB," said Dr. Eric Goemaere, head of Medecins Sans Frontieres in South Africa. "But we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg."