I found an article
“Return of the ‘White Plague’: Fears over the rise of ‘incurable’ TB” on the
CNN website. It is a great follow up article to my last post because it also
talks about the relevance and significance of this disease.
The article starts with a compelling story
about a man named Adile from South Africa. He previously contracted tuberculosis and did
not receive proper treatment in his hometown, Cape Town. Now, he is infected
with extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis and has no hope that he will
get better. He explains how his current environment is not clean and it
increases the risk of contracting tuberculosis.
In South Africa, tuberculosis is the leading
cause of death. This country is suffering through a public health emergency
because of the increasing number of people developing XDR tuberculosis. About
half a million cases are reported and now a large percentage of cases are drug
resistant tuberculosis. Poor nutrition, ventilation, housing are examples of how drug
resistant tuberculosis is mainly being transmitted through person-to-person
contact.
The
Cause of XDR Tuberculosis
When the disease is not properly
treated, the bacterium has a chance to mutate and become drug resistant. Many
individuals from Africa do not finish their full course of treatment and run
the risk of developing XDR. Since they are not treatable with the common drugs
for tuberculosis, patients will have to take stronger medication. Some of the
medication might have extreme side effects and could potentially cause more
harm to the immune system. If individuals do not seek treatment right away then
it could cause permanent damage to the lungs and cause eventual death.
Global Burden
On a global scale,
XDR- tuberculosis has the highest reported cases in Russia, Eastern Europe,
China and India. At least one case of this type of tuberculosis has been
reported in ninety-two countries. It is likely that more cases are out there
but remain unreported. In India and China, there are patients who are incurable
because they have developed a vast resistance to drugs. The countries with the
most cases of XDR tuberculosis need the most help because if they don’t improve
then there is no hope for the rest of the other countries.
The World Health
Assembly agreed to improve the long-term tuberculosis strategy. They believe if
this drug resistant form of tuberculosis continues to spread it could be the
number one infectious disease. Their main goal is to reduce tuberculosis deaths
by ninety-five percent between 2015 and 2035. The assembly fears that other diseases
will also become drug resistant.
The World Health
Organization plans to aid the most affected countries first to improve their
diagnosis and treatment of drug resistance. The most important task will be
making sure the patients continue taking alternative drugs for at least two years.
If they do not continue with treatment it can just spark more drug resistant
forms to develop. The organization also plans to control the transmission of
this disease.
This article
serves as a great tool to demonstrate how serious this disease is and to
publicly inform the population. Do you
think there are other ways to handle this disease? Is shutting down borders a
productive or counterproductive measure for this disease?
Summarized Article This is an external link to the article I summarized for my post!
References
Senthilingam, M., & story was partly supported by the Pulitzer Center on crisis reporting. (2014, May 28). Return of the 'White Plague': Fears over the rise of 'incurable' TB. CNN. Retrieved , from http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/health/return-white-plague-incurable-tb/
XDR-TB. (n.d.). WHO. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/tb/challenges/mdr/xdr/en/
Summarized Article This is an external link to the article I summarized for my post!
References
Senthilingam, M., & story was partly supported by the Pulitzer Center on crisis reporting. (2014, May 28). Return of the 'White Plague': Fears over the rise of 'incurable' TB. CNN. Retrieved , from http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/health/return-white-plague-incurable-tb/
XDR-TB. (n.d.). WHO. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/tb/challenges/mdr/xdr/en/
Mabel,
ReplyDeleteWe had to deal with a treatment course of TB with my husband in 2001. Before starting a new job, he was required to have a TB test done, and failed it with a positive reaction at the site on his forearm. He ended up completing a six-month course of antibiotics, which got rid of the TB, thankfully. We tried to pin point where he would have picked it up from, but the only thing that we were able to conclude was that while he lived in Argentina for two years he got sick and must have picked it up the.
As for your question, I don't think that shutting down borders would solve the problem, but what about submitting negative TB test results in order to leave countries that have an excessive amount of cases of TB?
Hello Lea,
DeleteI am glad your husband received and finished his treatment! I think your idea of submitting negative TB results to leave countries is a great idea! thanks for your comment.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Mabel, Your topic reminds my TB skin test few year ago. I got a positive skin test result when I was asked to submit a TB report at a school in Washington DC. Right after they looked at my skin result, they immediately step like 3 feet away from me and asked me to take another Xray test on chest. I remember the school officer said that if the Xray test was positive, I needed to stop going to school. Luckily, the result was negative but still I needed to fully finish my medication. TB is treatable, I think the community should help their population aware it it by teaching, educating them how to taking care of themselves to prevent the spreading of disease and to treat the disease properly when it is still in the inactive stage. Other than that, health care organization in this country should advice their people to have the TB check annually or in a period of time.
ReplyDeleteHello Yen,
DeleteThanks for sharing your story! I am glad to hear that your results were negative but you importantly finished your full course of medication.
I'm curious how a disease becomes incurable. Does that mean that the cure to that disease just becomes harder to get because the disease mutated to be unaffected by the current treatment? Or does it mean that the disease is unaffected by any current or future treatment?
ReplyDeleteSolving the problem of the spread of TB would require that you solve tons of other problems first though, like making living environments cleaner in general, which would improve the overall general health of everyone. Hopefully, their plan to decrease the rate by 95% actually works.
Hello Ryan,
ReplyDeleteThere is a new form of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. This disease form has mutated and is not curable by the most common drugs available. Individuals with this disease have to use more severe drugs with extreme side effects. These alternative medications are extremely expensive and scarce.