A new study published by the highly accredited medical
journal The Lancet is saying that
certain strands of Tuberculosis are showing resistance to various second-line
drugs used to treat them. Second-line drug meaning a therapeutic agent that is
not the first choice normally used to treat the disease in question. The study
was completed over a three year period using these 8 international countries:
Estonia, Latvia, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and
Thailand. Participants chosen had
already been diagnosed with some form of multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis and were
tested against 11 first and second line drugs to compare the results and see
which drug has more of a reaction to each patient. The results showed that
43.7% of the 1,278 participants had some sort of resistance to the second-line
drug. It also showed that 20% of the participants had resistance to injectable
forms of the second-line drugs. This creates a problem in the sense that it is
not just one form of treatment that is showing resistance, it is apparently
several forms.
The
best interpretation provided as to what this means is that people trying to
treat Tuberculosis with second-line drugs were making themselves more resistant
to the medications. This poses a serious threat because drug resistant Tuberculosis
is rather difficult to control much less treat. According to the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, Tuberculosis is an air borne pathogen meaning
you do not have to touch a single person to acquire this disease. It is also
sometimes hard to recognize because the systems may mimic something like a
common cold. Someone could be transmitting the drug and not even be aware. To
learn that individuals are not only carrying this disease, but are carrying
drug resistant forms of this disease means that It has potential to be a global
epidemic if it is not monitored closely. The New York Times also published an
article about this issue stating that the most drug resistant forms of
Tuberculosis find host in alcoholics, prisoners, heavy smokers, the unemployed
and homeless, and people with HIV. The commonality lies in the compromised
immune systems of these individuals giving pathway for this diseases entry. They
go on to say that curing drug resistant Tuberculosis costs almost 200 times
that of regular Tuberculosis. So on top of the already apparent health issue
this introduces, there is also a huge economic burden that could be placed on
the world if an outbreak were to occur.
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