Uzbekistan: Tuberculosis Shows Resistance
In northwestern Uzbekistan, drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) are spreading while only one in 10 people with TB receives treatment. MSF has treated more than 2,000 people with drug-resistant TB in Uzbekistan over the last 10 years.
Lucius Fox
Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Enterprises
As World TB Day comes round again, there are warnings from doctors that drug-resistant forms of the disease are spreading fast and urgent calls for new medicines and more funding to deal with a mass killer.
A multidrug-resistant tuberculosis strain. Photograph: Alamy
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The Need For Urgent HIV and TB Treatment in Myanmar.
Tens of thousands of people living with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in Myanmar are unable to access lifesaving antiretroviral therapy (ART), a dire situation exacerbated by the recent cancellation of a new round of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
“Lives in the Balance,” a new report from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), outlines the situation for people affected by HIV and tuberculosis (TB), with a special focus on multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), in Myanmar today. It calls for urgent funding and assistance to be made available by the international donor community to help Myanmar close the devastating gap between people’s need and people’s access to treatment for HIV and TB.
Infographic by Will Owen
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“While international attention focuses on Myanmar, a health crisis in the country looms large. An estimated 85,000 people infected with HIV in Myanmar are not receiving lifesaving treatment. This is an improvement on previous years with new momentum in the country to tackle the crisis. However, the recent retreat of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria threatens to undo improvements, leaving tens of thousands of people living with HIV and TB without treatment and a large scale crisis unchecked.”
—Joe Belliveau, an operations manager at Doctors Without Borders.
This article originally appeared in Thailand’s The Nation newspaper.
Myanmar 2011 © Veronique Terrasse/MSF Meeting with patients at an MSF clinic in southern Myanmar.
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Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011
4. Numbers of Patients on Treatment for Drug-Resistant TB Remains Catastrophically Low
Governments are not meeting the challenge of providing treatment for the rising numbers of people infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), which has infected around five million people over the past ten years.
DR-TB—which occurs when the TB bacterium becomes resistant to anti-TB drugs—can be cured in the majority of cases, but many people go undiagnosed and untreated because of the difficulties involved in getting a correct diagnosis, and the expensive and complex treatment.
In what many hope will prove to be a breakthrough development, a new diagnostic test has been rolled out this year—including by MSF in seven countries—that can drastically reduce the time it takes to diagnose DR-TB, from several weeks to under two hours. Although the test is very expensive and is not as simple a test as is ultimately needed, the fact that it’s now a lot easier to diagnose people should spur governments into putting many more on treatment.
Photo: Armenia 2010 © Bruno De Cock/MSF
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