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 Latest data from the World Health Organisation
(WHO), which says drug-resistant TB is a "global health security
risk", showed a third of the estimated 9 million people who contract
TB in any form each year do not get the care they need.
This has led to drug resistance spreading around the world at an
alarming rate and has given rise to incurable strains of the
bacterial infection — known as totally drug-resistant TB — which
cannot be treated with any known medicines.
"Earlier and faster diagnosis of all forms of TB is vital," said WHO
director general Margaret Chan as the U.N. health agency published
new TB data on Thursday. "It improves the chances of people getting
the right treatment and being cured, and it helps stop spread of
drug-resistant disease."
Last year the WHO called for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB)
to be recognized as a public health crisis. It says the contagious,
deadly superbug forms of the disease carry "grave consequences for
those affected".
 Treating even regular TB is a long process. Patients need to take a
cocktail of antibiotics for six months and many fail to complete the
treatment. This in turn has fuelled the emergence of drug-resistant TB — a
man-made problem that has grown in the past decade because people
sick with regular TB were either being given the wrong medicines or
wrong doses or did not complete their treatment.
HURDLES
Experts say one of the major hurdles to tackling drug-resistant
strains effectively is that so many patients who have contracted
them do not know it and so continue with the wrong treatments or are
not treated at all.
Some of the poorest and most ill-equipped countries have only one
central laboratory, which often has limited capacity to diagnose MDR-TB.
In other cases, patient samples have to be sent to other countries
for testing.
Traditional diagnostic tests can take more than two months to get
results, leaving a dangerous gap in which the patient is not getting
the right treatment and is putting others at risk of catching the
contagious disease.
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The WHO says up to 2 million people worldwide may be infected
with drug-resistant TB by 2015.
Newer, speedier diagnostic tests have been developed in recent
years, but the problem has been getting the technology and know-how
to the countries where they are needed most.
However, Chan cited encouraging signs from an international
project known as EXPAND-TB (Expanding Access to New Diagnostics for
TB), financed by UNITAID, which has helped to triple the number of
MDR-TB cases diagnosed in participating countries.
In 2009, UNITAID backed the EXPAND project with $87 million to new
TB diagnostic technologies in 27 low- and middle-income countries,
which together account for around 40 percent of the global MDR-TB
burden.
"The gap in access to TB diagnostics and care is far from filled,
but it is narrowing," said Mario Raviglione, director of WHO's
global TB program. "Increased capacity and reduced prices mean that
we can reach more people."
UNITAID was launched in 2006 by the governments of Britain, Brazil,
Chile, France and Norway to give sustainable funding for the fight
against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. About 70 percent of its
funds come from a levy on airline tickets.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)
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