‘Totally’ Resistant TB Emerges in India

Four tuberculosis patients in India were found to be untreatable with the best available drugs. Experts who say the country’s program for dealing with the disease does not adequately address resistant strains are calling for an overhaul of its treatment methods, including rigorous adherence to medication regimens. —ARK

MedPageToday:

They are “totally drug-resistant,” according to Zarir Udwadia, MD, and colleagues at P. D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre in Mumbai.

Udwadia and colleagues blamed the rise of such resistance on India’s healthcare system, which has had some success against normal TB, but which they said does not pay enough attention to resistant strains.

As a result, many patients with resistant TB go to private physicians who are “unregulated both in terms of prescribing practice and qualifications,” they said.

The result is inadequate care that leads to increasing resistance, rather than cure, they argued.

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Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis.