Health hazard Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis will „real health problem“

28/12/2013

According to experts, many countries are poorly armed for the fight against resistant tuberculosis pathogens, which can no longer be treated with conventional medicines.

Patients are simply sent home due to missing rooms
Experts are worried that they believe that many countries around the world are ill-prepared to fight tuberculosis. As the managing director of the German leprosy and tuberculosis aid DAHW, Burkard Kömm, told the news agency dpa, there are more and more cases of a multidrug-resistant type of illness. Since there are not enough rooms to isolate the patients, especially in poorer countries, patients would often simply be sent home and thus spread the pathogen.

„This is really going to be a health problem“
DAHW President Gudrun Freifrau von Wiedersperg said: „This is really going to be a health problem.“ Kömm explained that in western Uzbekistan already 60 percent of all new tuberculosis cases were caused by resistant pathogens. „Of course, this wave also spills over into Western Europe - although we are probably well protected with our good immune system.“

Effective drugs are not effective in resistant pathogens
In tuberculosis, which is triggered by a bacterium, usually the lungs are affected. The two most effective drugs do not work in multidrug-resistant pathogens and treatment is difficult then, as Kömm explained. Diseased patients would then have to be isolated and take an antibiotic mix for months with serious side effects. Therefore, one should start with the therapy only if the persons affected can be taken up in-patient for half a year. Otherwise there is a risk that the patient will discontinue the medication because of the side effects, „and then you have a totally resistant tuberculosis.“ However, in a country such as Nigeria, there are only 80 suitable places and hundreds of patients on the waiting list.

Tuberculosis is the world's deadliest infectious disease
To date, tuberculosis is relatively widespread, especially in Asia, Africa and the Eastern European countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 450,000 people contracted multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in 2012. Worldwide, a total of 8.6 million people were infected with the disease, 1.3 million died. In Germany, the problem is relatively low, but according to the Robert Koch Institute rise in children in this country, the infection numbers. In 2011, around 4,300 people fell ill with tuberculosis and 162 died. In a worldwide comparison, Germany is doing relatively well with an average of 5.3 reported cases per 100,000 inhabitants. (Ad)