Front Page  health

Monday, April 3, 2006

New TB puts U.S. at Risk

By Jackie Jadrnak
Journal Staff Writer
    Most people tend to think of tuberculosis as a disease of the past.
    The sanitariums that brought many people to New Mexico's clean air and sunny climate closed down decades ago. Cases in the United States have reached an all-time low.
    But there's a potential for trouble that has some experts worried. Inadequate efforts to fight the disease in other countries result in 1.7 million people dying worldwide each year— and also result in the emergence of more insidious, treatment-resistant forms, according to Dr. Marcos Espinal. Executive secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, a network of more than 500 governments and other agencies focused on global TB control, he was in Albuquerque last month for a TB summit.
    "We live in a global village," he said. "TB can be acquired in a plane in flights of more than six hours."
    And while multi-drug-resistant TB— a form that can't be cured with two of the most common drugs used— has been around for a while, researchers now are noticing something called extensively drug-resistant TB. That form does not respond to treatment with three of the possible six classes of anti-TB drugs.
    "(Extensively drug-resistant) TB has emerged worldwide as a threat to public health and TB control, raising concerns of a future epidemic of virtually untreatable TB,"