China faces a "serious epidemic" of drug-resistant tuberculosisaccording to the first-ever nationwide estimate of the size of theproblem there, said a US-published study on Wednesday. "In 2007, one third of the patients with new cases of tuberculosisand one half of the patients with previously treated tuberculosishad drug-resistant disease," said the study in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine. Even more, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB in newcases (5.7 percent) was nearly twice the global average, said thestudy. Using World Health Organization figures as a basis for comparison,"China has the highest annual number of cases of MDR tuberculosisin the world -- a quarter of the cases worldwide," it added. "China has a serious epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis." The data came from a survey of more than 4,600 Chinese people whowere recently diagnosed or treated for TB. Patients for the study were treated at local TB clinics, nothospitals, and the survey was conducted by the NationalTuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL) of the Chinese Centers forDisease Control. According to an accompanying editorial by Johns Hopkins Universityinfectious disease specialist Richard Chaisson, the growth ofdrug-resistant TB presents an "enormous challenge." Even more concerning was the finding that most of the 110,000drug-resistant cases were in people newly diagnosed with thedisease, suggesting that the virulent bacteria are beingtransmitted from person to person and not developing solely as aresult of a person prematurely stopping treatment. "MDR tuberculosis is linked to inadequate treatment in both thepublic health system and the hospital system, especiallytuberculosis hospitals; however, primary transmission accounts formost cases," said the study. Chaisson said the findings highlight the need for faster testing,and for new cases of TB to be tested for signs of drug resistance,not just recurrent forms. In China, over one million new tuberculosis infections occur eachyear -- a large chunk of the estimated nine million new casesworldwide annually. Known formally as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB spreads throughthe air when infected people cough up bacteria. TB kills about 1.5million people worldwide each year. Often it can be cured with antibiotics, though drug availability islimited in the developing world and sometimes patients do notfollow the entire regimen of treatment, which can encourage thedevelopment of resistant strains. The study was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Health. I am an expert from uninterrupted-power-supply.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Rack Mountable UPS , outdoor battery cabinet, Rack Mountable UPS,and more.
Related Articles -
Rack Mountable UPS, outdoor battery cabinet,
|