Action needed now to prevent resistant tuberculosis

摘要

Immediate global action could prevent 134 000 deaths from multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis by the end of 2008. But this can only be achieved if governments and other funding organisations worldwide contribute US dollar 2.15 billion over the next 2 years. The Global MDR-TB and XDR-TB Response Plan announced on June 21, 2007, by WHO and the Stop TB Partnership could ensure that ail patients with MDR tuberculosis or XDR tuberculosis have access to diagnosis and treatment by 2015, saving 1.2 million lives. The consequences of failing to tackle XDR tuberculosis are severe: "We risk converting the largely treatable tuberculosis epidemic into a non-treatable one, as it was before antibiotics", said Paul van Helden (Medical Research Council and Stellenbosch University, South Africa).