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Doctors disagree over detention of patients with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis

BMJ 2007; 334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39108.568368.DB (Published 01 February 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;334:228
  1. Peter Moszynski
  1. 1London

    The World Health Organization has issued new guidance on the treatment of patients with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), after it was suggested that people may need to be involuntarily detained to prevent a virtually untreatable disease from emerging.

    Writing in the latest edition of PLoS Medicine (2007;4:e50, doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040050), Jerome Singh, from South Africa's Centre for the Aids Programme of Research, recommends that the South African government follow the example of New York state in the 1990s, where forced confinement was used successfully to contain an outbreak of multiple drug resistant tuberculosis.

    The outbreak of XDR-TB in South Africa (BMJ 2006;333:566, 16 Sep) has so far caused 74 …

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