Blog #9: Drug-resistant "white plague" lurks among rich and poor

Tuberculosis-when you hear of that disease, it does not sound like a common disease of today, right? It’s one of those diseases where you only hear about in history class or literature class….one that goes along with the bubonic plague, measles, etc. But surprisingly, it is still present today. According to this article, there is a new strand of TB which is deadlier than ever. It is called multi-drug resistant TB, or MDR-TB. Like the name describes, this drug is resistant to numerous drugs and doctors cannot find a cure for it. A law student in London went through months of losing weight and suffering fevers, night sweats, and shortness of breath. She didn’t know what was going on until one day she went to the hospital and the doctors diagnosed her with TB. Even worse, the anti-biotics that the doctors prescribed her just were not working. TB was often seen in the impoverished 18^th or 19^th century women and children. Today, wealthy cities like London and crowded cities like India are hearing new cases of this deadly MDR-TB. Experts say that they cannot “afford this genie to get out of the bag” because if it does, they won’t know how to control it. TB is a bacterial infection that destroys patients’ lung tissue which makes them cough and sneeze, and spread germs through the air. It is also very contagious. Doctors are saying that this new strand of TB is produced by humans, because patients were treated badly with either poor quality drugs or not enough drugs and some patients did not finish the treatment course, so the original TB strand was not fully eliminated.

                  

This is a major social health problem because this new strand of TB is very deadly. It also spreads very easily among people at a fast rate. It is mutated in a way where doctors cannot find a cure for it, because it is resistant to dozens of modern drugs. The law student in London did not know exactly how she got this disease, but it goes to show how hand washing is a must, especially when you’ve been in contact with crowded areas. This is alarming because who would have thought that an old disease can be “brought to life” again, in a new mutated form. People need to be educated of this so that they can take better health pre-cautions to avoid getting this TB. WHO and doctors are trying to investigate how to cure this disease, but we do not know when they will find a cure. The best way to avoid this is to spread the word and stress the importance of hand washing around the world. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/19/us-tuberculosis-idUSBRE82I0D820120319