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Friday, January 20, 2012

India rejects 'total drug resistant TB' claim

Article via BBC, excerpt :

" Indian health authorities have rejected recent reports that some tuberculosis cases in Mumbai were totally resistant to antibiotic treatment.

A health ministry team sent to probe the cases said they were "extensively drug resistant" infections.

Earlier, doctors in Mumbai said 12 patients had a "totally drug resistant" form of TB, and three had died.

TB is one of the world's biggest killers, second only to HIV among infectious diseases.

Normally a patient with TB is given a six to nine month course of antibiotics to eradicate it.

However, new strains of the bacterium have developed which are increasingly resistant to the antibiotics most commonly used to treat it.

Partially drug-resistant TB can now be found in countries across the world, and "multi-drug resistant" strains affect countries such as Russia and China."

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