Fully antibiotic resistant TB is here

[Silent1]

The BBC said:

Tuberculosis which appears to be totally resistant to antibiotic treatment has been reported for the first time by Indian doctors.

Concern over drug-resistant strains of TB is growing, with similar 'incurable' TB emerging in Italy and Iran.

Doctors in Mumbai said 12 patients had a "totally drug resistant" form of the infection, and three have died.

The Indian Health Ministry is investigating the cases and has sent a team of doctors to Mumbai.

TB is one of the world's biggest killers, second only to HIV among infectious diseases.

Normally a patient with TB is given a six to nine month course of antibiotics to eradicate it.

However, new strains of the bacterium have developed which are increasingly resistant to the antibiotics most commonly used to treat it.

Partially drug-resistant TB can now found in countries across the world, and "multi-drug resistant" strains affect countries such as Russia and China.

'Serious threat'

Dr Kenneth Castro - Centers for Disease Control said:

Anytime we see something like this, we better get on top of it before it becomes a more widespread problem”

The Indian reports will fuel concerns over the ability of doctors to contain the disease in years to come.

The doctors at the Hinduja National Hospital in Mumbai who discovered it said they had treated patients for up to two years with a battery of drugs, to no avail.

The patients came from slum areas of the city, they said, where close contact between people meant further spread was likely.

The American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed that the Indian strain did appear to be completely resistant.

Dr Kenneth Castro, director of its Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, said: "Anytime we see something like this, we better get on top of it before it becomes a more widespread problem."

Patients who do not finish their lengthy course of treatment also present the bacterium with the perfect environment for developing further resistance.

However, there have been repeated calls for the pharmaceutical industry to make more efforts to develop fresh antibiotics.
Continue reading the main story

TB

• Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that usually affects the lungs

• It is transmitted via droplets from the lungs of people with the active form of the disease

• Symptoms of TB include coughing, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats

• Tuberculosis is usually treatable with a course of antibiotics

Dr Ruth Mcnerney, a senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a trustee of charity TB Alert, said the new cases represented a "serious threat" to global efforts to control TB.

"What we're seeing is probably just the tip of the iceberg. We don't know how widespread this is because so few people are tested for drug resistance."

She said the high prevalence of TB in India, coupled with high population density within its cities, meant that the new type of TB could be a bigger problem than previous "totally resistant" strains.

"It's going to take a massive effort and change in political will to get to grips with this - not just from the Indian government but from everyone else. This is a global problem, not just an Indian one."

Source

This is seriously worrying because the antibiotics we are currently using are very very old ones as all the new ones are ineffective as people have abused them by not taking them properly and/or because bacteria develops a resistance to new drugs fairly quickly.

To add to the potential catastrophe that is in front of us is that no companies are currently researching new antibiotics, this is for 3 reasons:

• Because they are a one time drug and not something that someone will take for the rest of their life drug companies are less willing to risk spending millions on development, especially when they could put that money into something that doesn't cure the problem but merely suppresses the symptoms temporarily and means the person taking them becomes a life long 'customer'.

• The bacteria that the antibiotics are effective against develop a resistance very quickly meaning that very rarely will they ever become profitable for the company. Penicillin was first mass produced in 1943 and by 1947 bacteria was becoming resistant, as antibiotics are used even more prevalently now those years can become months.

• Also as new antibiotics work effectively on the entire spectrum of bacteria that they were developed to be effective on doctors/hospitals/PCTs will only prescribe them for the most serious cases where other antibiotics have failed, this is exacerbated by the fact that we have so few/no antibiotics that can be used on the most resistant bacteria.

If we had a broad range of new effective antibiotics then they wouldn't suffer the problem of being used as the last resort, instead they would be used as the first choice, increasing sales, meaning drug companies would develop more as they would become cost effective.
But as we don't have the critical mass of antibiotics for that to work it means that some companies are going to have to develop them almost philanthropically until critical mass is reached.





This then makes it counter-productive for the manufacturers to spend millions developing a new drug to risk never making that money back.
After all they are a business doing it to make profit, not for the greater good of man, if they could cure everything they wouldn't be in business for very long.

There are a few scientists/researchers out there doing it for the greater good and of them there's even fewer that have developed something and are in the position of being able to ensure the drug companies sell the product/drug at cost price.

IIRC there's a few vaccines that the inventors have licensed to companies on the basis that they sell it for cost price in third world countries and in return can sell it for whatever they like in first world countries.

[Yertis]

So does BCG make you immune to this?

Actually I can't even remember what BCG was for. It was TB wasn't it?

[steviegunn]

Yertis said:

So does BCG make you immune to this?

Actually I can't even remember what BCG was for. It was TB wasn't it?

It's pretty much ineffective after 15-20 years, people BCG'd as children are as dead as everyone else (think they stopped mass vaccination in the naughties).

[dandarez]

That is serious and worrying long term (probably short term too).

So to add a lighter note, asides from the topic, bet that Dr Castro has a fun time in the USA.

Good job is first name doesn't begin with a 'F'.