Shots - Health Blog Thu August 30, 2012 A Troubling Rise In
Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis
are increasing around the globe, and at a faster rate than
previously thought. And if that weren't enough, TB is quickly
building resistance to more and more of the drugs commonly used
to fight it. The troubling picture emerged in a study just
published in The Lancet. The study, led by Dr. Tracy Dalton from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looked at the
effectiveness of second-line drugs in patients who already have
TB resistant to multiple drugs or infections that don't respond
to the two most powerful first-line medications. The researchers
found that options for treating these people are shrinking
rapidly. Public health officials had been assuming that roughly
5 percent of TB cases are resistant to the most common TB drugs.
But this study notes that in Minsk, Belarus, for example, almost
half the newly reported TB infections last year were resistant
to the most common