New TB strain could fuel South Africa AIDS toll

[Ban Hammer 14,302]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A highly drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis that has killed 52 people in South Africa is spreading, opening a deadly chapter in the country's HIV/AIDS crisis, medical experts said on Monday.

Tuberculosis is an airborne illness that is particularly deadly for those with immune systems weakened by HIV, a virus that affects an estimated 5 million South Africans or one in nine of the country's population.

South Africa already buries an estimated 900 AIDS patients every day -- many of them killed by tuberculosis.

Dr. Tony Moll, who detected the new TB strain at King George Hospital in Durban, said South Africa's government, already accused by critics of dragging its feet in the war against AIDS, appeared equally unprepared for the new tuberculosis threat.

"A lot more attention from South Africa is needed, and it needs to happen quite fast to keep this in check and contain it," Moll told Reuters in an interview.

South Africa's Health Department, which was roundly criticized at last month's global AIDS meeting in Toronto for its AIDS policies, skipped an emergency meeting of regional officials in Johannesburg last week that produced detailed action plans to stem a possible global health crisis.

Moll said South African officials were alerted 16 months ago to the deadly strain of TB, known as XDR-TB and resistant to most of the drugs now used to treat the disease, but had yet to draw up a national strategy to fight it.

The extent of the crisis emerged only last week when the U.N. World Health Organization and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control voiced public fears over the TB outbreak.

"For a long time I felt I was crying on deaf ears. It has really taken people from the international community to say 'gee whiz this is really serious and of global significance'," Moll said.

STRAIN COULD SPREAD

Officials said the TB strain could spread beyond the poor rural community in South Africa's eastern KwaZulu-Natal region where 53 people have been diagnosed. Of those, 52 have died and all those tested for HIV were positive.

"It's very clear that the country needs to carry out better surveillance. If it grows -- if there are more provinces that show signs -- then it becomes a much bigger concern," said Paul Nunn, coordinator of the Stop TB department of WHO.

Tuberculosis kills about 1.7 million people around the world every year and is usually cured with antibiotics, although this treatment is proving ineffective against the new superbug.

Moll said 10 more cases of XDR-TB recently cropped up in KwaZulu-Natal and it has been identified in many miners in the central Gauteng province. But without a national plan to find and diagnose the disease no one can accurately gauge the number of cases.

The TB outbreak adds to the woes of Health Minister Tshabalala-Msimang, who is already under international scrutiny for her controversial interpretation of HIV/AIDS policies.

Top scientists this month called for her dismissal for advocating traditional medicines rather than anti-retrovirals to fight HIV.

A WHO official told Reuters last week that the TB outbreak warrants a response on the scale of the international campaigns to combat SARS and bird flu -- with the danger that the new strain could spread to other AIDS-ravaged countries in Africa.

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Edited September 11, 2006 by charlesandnessa

[Saddle Bronc 124]

More than just South Africa, unfortunately:

• other African countries (as there is quite a bit of long-distance trade by road)
  
• India (as this country has IN GROSS more HIV-infected than S. Africa), through ship (trade) or plane-travel (passenger), as well as already-high TB rate
  
• Eastern Europe (where health system has been in tatters since at least 1991--more likely, it was never sound but none outside had complete knowledge of Soviet systems shortcomings and fudgings)
  
• other parts of world (through visitors with latent TB)
  

[peejay 327]

More than just South Africa, unfortunately:

• other African countries (as there is quite a bit of long-distance trade by road)
  
• India (as this country has IN GROSS more HIV-infected than S. Africa), through ship (trade) or plane-travel (passenger), as well as already-high TB rate
  
• Eastern Europe (where health system has been in tatters since at least 1991--more likely, it was never sound but none outside had complete knowledge of Soviet systems shortcomings and fudgings)
  
• other parts of world (through visitors with latent TB)
  

Yet another important reason that foreign nationals should not be entering our country without inspection. In the town I live in there are diseases showing up in the public health system in increasing numbers that were not even present before illegal immigration became increasingly prevalent here. Now we are Federally mandated to treat these diseases that these people bring with them.

[type2negative 0]

Yet another important reason that foreign nationals should not be entering our country without inspection. In the town I live in there are diseases showing up in the public health system in increasing numbers that were not even present before illegal immigration became increasingly prevalent here. Now we are Federally mandated to treat these diseases that these people bring with them.

Wow You are brave man. I expect bunch of libs attack you now calling you a racist on "impying that all mexicabns are unsanitory and infectios", using infallable logic that " that they saw a guy a week ago, who was even dirtier". And Then something about "building a house", and collapse of the US economy. Heh.

[peejay 327]

Yet another important reason that foreign nationals should not be entering our country without inspection. In the town I live in there are diseases showing up in the public health system in increasing numbers that were not even present before illegal immigration became increasingly prevalent here. Now we are Federally mandated to treat these diseases that these people bring with them.

Wow You are brave man. I expect bunch of libs attack you now calling you a racist on "impying that all mexicabns are unsanitory and infectios", using infallable logic that " that they saw a guy a week ago, who was even dirtier". And Then something about "building a house", and collapse of the US economy. Heh.

The facts speak for themselves. And besides...our local pro-illegal alien newspaper (The Houston Chronicle) often prints stories basically stating the same thing. Only with their retarded logic...that is just a minor glitch because the illegals are just wonderful for the local economy. Whose economy? Most notably the corrupt businesses that exploit the illegal labor and pass the costs onto the taxpayer.

I'm not really afraid of the liberals on VJ as much as I'm afraid of a President and a Republican Congress that has made it national policy to agressively circumvent immigration and workplace enforcement laws. They hold the safety and wellbeing of Americans hostage by failing to control our borders unless they get a guestworker program that further screws the American public. Instead of cheap illegal foreign labor that passes the cost onto the taxpayer we will get a flood of cheap legal foreign labor that passes the costs onto the taxpayer while screwing the working class. Of course none of this would even be happening unless someone higher up the food chain wasn't getting very rich from it. I'm still trying to figure out why this is so benefitial to me or most Americans. Of course it isn't!

But I have to admit that the prospect of Teddy Kennedy, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary, etc. running the country isn't so appealing either. The thought of it makes me break out in a cold sweat and go into convulsions.

Either way we are screwed. And that is the problem.

[type2negative 0]

[The facts speak for themselves. And besides...our local pro-illegal alien newspaper (The Houston Chronicle) often prints stories basically stating the same thing. Only with their retarded logic...that is just a minor glitch because the illegals are just wonderful for the local economy. Whose economy? Most notably the corrupt businesses that exploit the illegal labor and pass the costs onto the taxpayer.

I'm not really afraid of the liberals on VJ as much as I'm afraid of a President and a Republican Congress that has made it national policy to agressively circumvent immigration and workplace enforcement laws. They hold the safety and wellbeing of Americans hostage by failing to control our borders unless they get a guestworker program that further screws the American public. Instead of cheap illegal foreign labor that passes the cost onto the taxpayer we will get a flood of cheap legal foreign labor that passes the costs onto the taxpayer while screwing the working class. Of course none of this would even be happening unless someone higher up the food chain wasn't getting very rich from it. I'm still trying to figure out why this is so benefitial to me or most Americans. Of course it isn't!

But I have to admit that the prospect of Teddy Kennedy, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary, etc. running the country isn't so appealing either. The thought of it makes me break out in a cold sweat and go into convulsions.

Either way we are screwed. And that is the problem.

Well I have nothing to add.

All those pro-ommigration rallyis and propaganda is orchestrated by someone gettin very rich on cheap labor. They dont care aboyut taxpayers, those immigrants, or America itself.

Its for them the new form of slavery, that even not that different form what it was.

But slavery never benefited any society.

Edited September 11, 2006 by type2negative