Drug resistant TB
2012-01-07 16:19:03.274041+00 by
Dan Lyke
1 comments
Via Columbine: First cases of totally drug resistant TB in India:
“After thoroughly checking their prescriptions, we found that three of them had received erratic and unsupervised second-line drugs. They were often given in incorrect doses by multiple private practitioners to cure their multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB,” Dr Udwadia said. “The mortality rate of MDR, XDR and TDR-TB is 30%, 60% and 100% respectively.”
Patients with TDR-TB are put on a salvage regime - they are either asked to undergo surgeries or put on experimental drugs and antibiotics such as Linezolid. The antibiotics can have dreadful side effects like neuropathy which damages a single nerve or nerve group that can lead to a loss of sensation of that nerve.
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#Comment Re: made: 2012-01-10 14:17:57.924114+00 by:
m
Many states in the US use DOT (Directly Observed Therapy) for dealing with TB.
The patient meets with a SHIT (Social Health Investigator Trainee) on a daily
basis, and the SHIT watches the patient take a huge handful of meds. Most people
don't like to take them because there are so many, and the side effects can be
gruesome. Liver damage to the point of jaundice amongst others. Most patients
are ignorant and non-compliant which is the reason DOT came to be.
TB used to be called the white plague. During the 1800s 1 in 6 Americans had TB.
Edgar Allen Poe, WC Fields and Eleanor Roosevelt were a few noted citizens who
died of the disease. Note that Roosevelt's TB was resistant to two drugs in
common use today, isoniazid and streptomycin.
TB is practically an STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) in that it is for the
most part poorly communicable. Occasionally though infections have been known to
occur following the briefest of non-intimate contact.
TB is generally well controlled in the US through strong Public Health methods
that border on the tyrannical. But I suspect that having treatable cases at a
rate of 4 per 100,000 (2008) is far better than having 17,000 drug resistant
cases per 100,000,