Experts devise strategy to fight new TB strain

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7568.566-b

BMJ 2006;333:566 (16 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7568.566-b

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Experts devise strategy to fight new TB strain

Peter Moszynski

Johannesburg

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Delegates at a conference in Johannesburg last week drew upa seven point action plan to counter the threat of extensivelydrug resistant tuberculosis (TB), a newly emergent strain thatseems to be resistant to nearly all existing drugs.

A patient with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis in Ethiopia

Credit: PETER MOSZYNSKI

The new strain was already present on every continent, but arecent outbreak in South Africa was particularly worrying, expertstold the meeting, which was hosted by the South African MedicalResearch Council, with support from the World Health Organizationand the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreakin South Africa was of an extraordinarily virulent form andoccurs in a region with extremely high HIV co-infection.

WHO said that multidrug resistant strains of the disease arealready widespread worldwide—mainly, it says, becauseof healthcare workers' improper treatment regimens and failureto ensure that patients complete . . . [Full text of this article]

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