Drug-Resistant TB on the Rise

摘要

A large international study has confirmed the rise of so-called extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) strains seen previously in national surveillance data. For the study, published online by The Lancet last week, sputum samples from 1278 patients from eight countries already resistant to two first-line antibiotics were shipped to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and tested for resistance against a panel of 11 TB drugs.