PARIS
(AFP) - Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has reached
"epidemic" levels in many ex-Soviet nations, and is widespread in
several provinces of News (Updated
April 19, 2009)
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Wed Apr 15, 7:15
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PARIS
(AFP) - Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has reached
"epidemic" levels in many ex-Soviet nations, and is widespread in
several provinces of
Data
on more than 90,000 patients in 83 countries covering the period 2002-2007
showed that one-in-nine of the approximately nine million new cases of
tuberculosis each year failed to respond to at least one anti-TB drug.
The
rates of MDR-TB -- defined as resistant to at least two frontline medications --
were between seven and 22 percent in nine countries from the former Soviet
Union, including 19 percent in Moldova and 22 percent in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Overall,
nearly a fifth of all TB cases in
"The
countries of the former
In
most rich nations, including
All
told, more than half-a-million cases of MDR-TB have emerged since 2006,
according to the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Half of them were in
The
most common types of TB can be easily cured with ten euros (14 dollars) worth of
medicine if diagnosed early.
But
new strains that have built up immunity to standard antibiotics -- especially
isoniazid and rifampicin -- can require drug treatments costing thousands of
dollars (euros) and lasting a year to 18 months.
And
even when properly treated, MDR-TB patients still face a significantly increased
risk of death.
The
study also found that virulent strain infection rates had increased in many
countries since the mid-1990s, when the Global Project on Anti-Tuberculosis Drug
Resistance was launched.
Between
1994 and 2007, prevalence jumped from 1.6 to 2.7 percent of all TB cases in
Rates
in the Baltic nations of
An
even more deadly and virtually untreatable form of the disease, called
extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis, showed up in 37 nations, with
more than 25 cases reported in five former Soviet states:
"Currently,
the world is far behind reaching targets for MDR-TB diagnosis and
management," the study warned.
The
World Health Organisation (WHO) said last month that progress in tackling
tuberculosis was far too slow, doubling its estimate of the ravages the disease
is causing among HIV/AIDS patients.
Some
9.27 million people contracted TB in 2007, an increase of about 30,000 over the
previous year mainly in line with population growth.
They
included some 1.4 million people with HIV/AIDS, compared to an estimated 600,000
in 2006.
More
than one death in four -- 456,000 of the 1.75 million tuberculosis deaths
recorded in 2007 -- is now thought to involve an HIV/AIDS patient.
Fri Apr 17, 2:56 PM
OSLO
The Affordable Medicines
Facility for Malaria aims to push down the cost of modern malaria drugs in order
to drive older, ineffective medications off the market, the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said.
"The age when the
world had effective drugs against infectious diseases but let millions die each
year because they couldn't afford them is over," said Norwegian Foreign
Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in a statement.
The facility will
initially be offered to 10 nations in Africa --
Sharing the initial cost
of 225 million dollars (172 million euros) over two years will be
The Global Fund will
manage the facility.
Spread by mosquitos in
tropical regions, and most notably in poorer developing countries, malaria
strikes about 250 million people a year -- one million of whom die, 90 percent
of them children.
New drugs, known as
artemisinin combination therapies, or ACTs, are available for free in public
health clinics, the Global Fund said.
But because they are up to
40 times more expensive over the counter, many malaria sufferers opt for
cheaper, older medicines that the malaria parasite has, over time, grown
resistant to.
Unitaid said the current
price of ACT treatment ranges from six to 10 dollars and would eventually fall
to around 20 cents.
"There is no reason
any child should die of malaria anymore," said Michel Kazatchkine,
executive director of the Global Fund.
"We have
insecticide-impregnated bed nets to protect families from mosquitos and
effective drugs to treat those who do fall ill. Now we only need to ensure that
all who need these things get them."
Unitaid president Philippe
Douste-Blazy called for an end to what he called the paradox of an African child
dying every 30 seconds from malaria when effective medication exists to counter
the illness.
Reversing the incidence of
malaria and HIV-AIDS is among the Millenium Development Goals set out by the
United Nations in 2000 which notably aim to reduce extreme poverty by half by
2015.
By LISA CORNWELL,
Associated Press Writer Lisa Cornwell, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 18,
12:58 pm ET
CINCINNATI – As life
moves to the Internet, a growing number of public health agencies are signing on
to social networking sites — not to find friends but to fight syphilis, AIDS
and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Public agencies in
Debra Mullen, who handles
online notifications for Columbus Public Health, contacted a man a year ago who
did not know he had syphilis. She heard from him again this week.
"He got treatment and
now is asking whether he needs any follow-up," she said.
Traditionally, health
departments have used letters and telephone calls to set up preferred
face-to-face meetings with the partners of infected people who visit their
clinics, test positive for a sexually transmitted disease, and reveal their
partners' names to health officials.
But with the Net, the
encounters may occur between people who know only each other's online names.
Even with that small piece of information, health officials can go to the site,
send a message to someone's partner, and advise him or her to contact health
officials and provide contact information.
Daniel Pohl of
"One client I was in
contact with over a couple of months was an escort. I was able to get him to
come in for syphilis testing, and he was infected," said Pohl, the center's
manager of disease intervention services. "He was treated for that, but was
too afraid to get tested then for HIV."
Over time, the man agreed
and tested positive for HIV a year or so ago when he was 19, Pohl said. "He
not only became very involved with his own care, but also got involved with a
program that helps other young people with HIV."
Pohl said another man who
lived with an emotionally abusive male partner was notified and tested negative
for HIV and syphilis, but agreed to see a counselor in the center's domestic
violence program.
"Sometimes the person
on the other end of the e-mail may be completely isolated from support services,
and this may help them in many ways," Pohl said.
The National Coalition of
STD Directors, consulting with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
developed guidelines in 2007 to help public health departments create profiles
for confidential online notification. Health officials say the notification cost
is minimal — a few thousand dollars for a computer and DSL line dedicated to
the program.
Rachel Kachur, a
researcher with the CDC's STD prevention division, said she is encouraged more
health departments are moving to online notification, but the work is not
happening fast enough.
"The national
guidelines help by giving local areas a jumping off point where they can tweak
them to fit their needs," she said. "But the goal is to get everyone
doing this."
Health departments in
"Our goal is to also
be on sites like Facebook where we could reach broader populations, including
heterosexual adults and adolescents who wouldn't use sites like Manhunt,"
Merriman said.
In
By BILL POOVEY, Associated
Press Writer Bill Poovey, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 18, 9:58 am ET
Initial tests show one
patient each from VA medical facilities in
The three cases included
one positive HIV test reported earlier this month, but the VA didn't identify
the facility involved at the time.
The patients are among
more than 10,000 getting tested because they were treated with endoscopic
equipment that wasn't properly sterilized and exposed them to other people's
body fluids.
"I was hoping and
expecting to not get anyone contaminated like that," he said. "It's
probably a little worse than we thought."
The VA also said there
have been six positive tests for the hepatitis B virus and 19 positive tests for
hepatitis C at the three locations.
There's no way to prove
patients were exposed to the viruses at its facilities, the agency said.
"These are not
necessarily linked to any endoscopy issues and the evaluation continues,"
the statement said.
The VA has said it does
not yet know if veterans treated with the same kind of equipment at its other
150 hospitals may have been exposed to the same mistake before the department
had a nationwide safety training campaign.
An agency spokeswoman has
said the mistake with the equipment was corrected nationwide by the time the
campaign ended March 14. The problems discovered in December date back more than
five years at the
The VA's disclosure Friday
was the department's first comment since April 3, when the VA reported the one
positive HIV test.
VA spokeswoman Katie
Roberts has declined to provide any details on how widespread the problems might
have been other than saying a review of the situation continues.
She said in an e-mail
Friday that "there is a very small risk of harm to patients from the
procedures at each site." She said the HIV results "still need to be
verified" in additional tests.
The VA statement shows the
number of "potentially affected" patients totals 10,797, including
6,387 who had colonoscopies at
More than 5,400 patients,
about half of those at risk, have been notified of their follow-up test results,
the VA said.
The Friday statement said
the VA is "continuing to notify individuals whose letters have been
returned as undeliverable, and working with homeless coordinators to reach
veterans with no known home address."
The statement also said
the VA has assigned more than 100 employees at the three locations to
"ensure that affected veterans receive prompt testing and appropriate
counseling."
All three sites used
endoscopic equipment made by Olympus American Inc., which has said in a
statement it is helping the VA address problems with "inadvertently
neglecting to appropriately reprocess a specific auxiliary water tube."
Charles Rollins, 62, who
served three tours in
"That's
terrible," he said by phone as he socialized at an American Legion post in
Police
have arrested Nadja Benaissa a 26-year-old singer in
"There is an urgent suspicion that the accused had unprotected sexual intercourse with three people in the years 2004 and 2006 without indicating beforehand that she was HIV positive," said the prosecutors.
Benaissa's lawyers said
there was no evidence that their client had acted in a criminal way.
REUTERS/Morris
Mac Matzen/Files (
Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:57pm
EDT
By Sylvia Westall
VIENNA
If prisons are a
reflection of society as a whole "we are seeing a disaster around the
world," Antonio Maria Costa said, highlighting substandard prisons as one
of the major concerns of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
There are around 30
million people under detention at any given time, the UNODC said, and the spread
of HIV through drug abuse in prisons is a severe problem.
Costa warned of a
time-bomb when large numbers of infected inmates are released.
"This is a health
bomb because of HIV they take along and this is a bomb because prisons are
universities for criminals," he told a news conference.
Costa said the problem of
overcrowding in jails was especially bad in Africa and
One prison he visited in
"Money for prisons is
limited worldwide ... priority is given to children, to education, to health, to
the elderly."
The United Nations has led
a 54-year campaign to improve prisons, developing a set of standards for how
they should be run and how inmates should be treated with guidance on food,
shelter and clothing.
Costa said the United
Nations needed to encourage countries to follow these guidelines and to look at
alternatives to prison for minor crimes to ease overcrowding.
(Editing by Katie Nguyen)