WHO to help with XDR-TB
2007-03-12 23:13
Johannesburg - South Africa (SA) is struggling to contain an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is sending a permanent staff member to help, reported The Lancet.
The medical journal said the WHO TB expert would advise the health department on how to deal with the outbreak of the often-fatal XDR-TB, which has spread to all nine provinces. The department has confirmed 269 cases of XDR-TB.
The director of Stop TB at WHO, Mario Raviglione, said the local, national and international response to the spread of XDR-TB was too little too late.
"This is an absolute emergency", he told The Lancet.
"It is the most urgent thing I have seen in my 15 years of working in tuberculosis: a highly resistant strain that is now killing HIV-positive people and is spreading very rapidly.
"Nobody is moving fast enough."
An appeal for $95m made last October in Paris has met little response, he said.
The WHO is also discussing the possibility of stationing its staff members in each province.
Raviglione said the immediate focus should be to investigate the outbreak at the Church of Scotland Hospital at Tugela Ferry in KwaZulu-Natal.
A study published online by The Lancet last August showed that 53 patients contracted XDR-TB and 52 died at the hospital. KwaZulu-Natal authorities launched their own investigations, but these have yet to be completed.
A total 205 XDR-TB cases have been confirmed in KwaZulu-Natal, the province with the highest HIV prevalence.
XDR-TB cases are those resistant to three or more of the six second-line TB drugs.
- SAPA