LANTANA — It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused
to go away. Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the
skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting
to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and
he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m.,
Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the
bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood. I'm dying, he told
himself, "because when you cough blood, it's something really
bad." It was really bad, and not just for him. Doctors say
Juarez's incessant hack was a sign of what they have both
dreaded and expected for years — this country's first case of a
contagious, aggressive, especially drug-resistant form of
tuberculosis. The Associated Press learned of his case, which
until now has not been made public, as part of a six-month look
at the soaring global challenge of drug resistance. Juarez's
strain — so-called extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB — has
never before been seen in the United Sta