Why should people in the U.S. care about TB – a disease that is mostly prevalent in third-world countries?
People think of TB as a disease of the past, but without the right treatment, TB will be a disease of the future right here at home. In the United States, a study published in August 2008, showed 18 cases of drug-resistant TB between 1993 and 2006 in California alone, and 77 cases that were one step away from XDR-TB. It also showed the proportion of patients with pre-XDR increased between 1993 and 2005 from seven percent to 32 percent. As many as half a million or more TB cases identified each year are resistant to multiple drugs. XDR-TB has now been found in more than 49 countries, including the U.S., England, Japan, Italy and Norway. Some strains are resistant to all existing antibiotics used for treating TB. Every country is vulnerable. More and more cases are being found. Meanwhile, throughout the world, 1.5 million people (one every 15 seconds) die each year from TB. If we fail to find promising compounds to treat people today, we won’t have the drugs to fight the more severe stra
