Tuberculosis (TB), a disease normally thought of as one from
the bygone eras of the impoverished, is making a comeback. TB is a bacterial infection that destroys the
lungs of the infected victim. It is
spread by the infected patient coughing and sneezing into the air; so it
spreads quickly. Rapidly rising rates of
drug resistant strains of TB are on the rise world wide, even in some of the
wealthiest nations. It is especially
making a comeback in Africa, Asia, and London, which has been dubbed the
“tuberculosis capital of Europe”. It is
also on the rise in India, which has patients with totally resistant strains of
TB. The new TB strains that are
surfacing today are either multi-drug resistant (MDR-TB), extensively
drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), and the newest strain is totally drug resistant
(TDR-TB). By 2015 WHO has predicted that
2.2 million people will be infected with multi-drug resistant
tuberculosis. Lucica Ditui who works
with the WHO’s Stop TB Partnership claims that the drug resistant TB strains
are “a totally man made disease”. Like
other viruses TB can evolve and mutate to become resistant to antibiotics. These mutations form because of improper
treatment from the doctors, who provided poor drugs or not enough drugs; or
from patients who fail to complete treatment.
Mutations in viruses do not occur instantly it has taken years of
amplified mistreatment of antibiotics to produce MDR-TB or TDR-TB. Ditui is worried about the rapid spread of
totally drug resistant TB due to the over use of antibiotics and how quickly
the virus spreads. She states, “We’ve
become to complacent about TB, thinking that it’s gone away. But the reality is that until it goes away in
the developing world, it’s not going away anywhere”.
These new
multi-resistant and totally drug resistant TB strains are definitely a cause
for concern. With new mutant strains on
the rise more people are susceptible to catching the virus and easily dying
from it due to the fact that it cannot be cured. With TB being an easily spread
air born disease, one person with the virus can infect 12 to 15 more people
each year. With traveling being so easy
now days and in confined spaces such as, airplanes, resistant TB can easily be
spread globally. It is sad to think that
these mutations have come about due to proper antibiotic use by the patient,
but especially proper drug administration by the doctor who society looks to
too cure, not cause disease. With an
increase rate in TB health care cost will go up in already developed nations
and progress made in preventing TB in developing countries will come to a
halt. This will especially be a problem
in many developing countries in Africa where TB is a leading cause of death
among people who are HIV-positive. With
all of the money spent on vaccines and the progress made to combat HIV to be
thrown away due to lack of medical care of TB would be a great shame. It would inhibit these developing nations
from growing a stable population that can contribute to produce a prosperous
economy. Action needs to be taken now
globally to being research on how to combat these new drug resistant strains of
tuberculosis. If awareness of the
problem is not raised and significant steps taken to prevent the spread of the
virus then it could become a pandemic; and tuberculosis does not discriminate
between the wealthy and the poor.
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