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 18th or 19th
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.
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