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News/Event Item
Adopt Tough Isolation for Drug-Resistant TB Patients
January 29, 2006
South Africans with highly drug-resistant tuberculosis may need to be isolated against their will to prevent "a potentially explosive international health crisis," South African and Canadian ethicists say.
Extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, has killed at least 74 people in the last few months in South Africa, according to a policy paper in Monday's issue of the journal PLoS Medicine.
Tuberculosis is an airborne bacteria spread through coughing or sneezing and can usually be treated. The XDR-strain, however, resists not only front-line drugs but also three of the six classes of second-line drugs.
Copyright © CBC 2007
For the full article, visit:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/01/22/tb-resistant.html
Related article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1996612,00.html
category: News from Other Sources : General Health News
contributed by Winnie Mutch on 23 January 2007
Africa :
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