September 11, 2006
Johannesburg - 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 five 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 the government, already accused by critics of dragging its feet in the war against Aids, appeared equally unprepared for the new tuberculosis threat.
SA criticised at Aids talks
"A lot more attention from South Africa is needed, and it needs to happen quite fast to keep this in check and contain it," said Moll.
South Africa's health department, which was roundly criticised 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 still had to draw up a national strategy to fight it.
The extent of the crisis emerged only last week when the United Nations World Health Organisation and the US Centres for Disease Control voiced public fears about 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'," said Moll.
Need better surveillance
Officials said the TB strain could spread beyond the poor rural communities in the 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 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, co-ordinator 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 super bug.
Moll said 10 more cases of XDR-TB recently cropped up in KwaZulu-Natal and it has been identified in many miners in central Gauteng.
Under international scrutiny
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 antiretrovirals to fight HIV.
A WHO official said last week that the TB outbreak warranted 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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