Indian TB cases 'can't be cured'

[hellheaven1987]

Tuberculosis which appears to be totally resistant to antibiotic treatment has been reported for the first time by Indian doctors.

Concern over drug-resistant strains of TB is growing, with similar 'incurable' TB emerging in Italy and Iran.

Doctors in Mumbai said 12 patients had a "totally drug resistant" form of the infection, and three have died.

The Indian Health Ministry is investigating the cases and has sent a team of doctors to Mumbai.

TB is one of the world's biggest killers, second only to HIV among infectious diseases.

Normally a patient with TB is given a six to nine month course of antibiotics to eradicate it.

However, new strains of the bacterium have developed which are increasingly resistant to the antibiotics most commonly used to treat it.

Partially drug-resistant TB can now found in countries across the world, and "multi-drug resistant" strains affect countries such as Russia and China.

Source

... This probably is worst news I ever read this month. Clearly, our antibiotic is slowly failing and we are out of option against bacteria infection... I don't want our medical technique got knock back to 19th Century...

[John Doe]

I've read similar about TB in South africa a few years back (before world cup IIRC)

Then there was that guy who was jailed in 2007 for his TB infection source

[Father Jack]

Antibiotic resistance is nothing new unfortunately, in recent years we have heard of antibiotics becoming less effective and giving rise to 'super-bugs' such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile. A Japanese study from January 2011 showed that Gonorrhoea was becoming resistant to the commonly used antibiotic to treat the disease, Ceftriaxone.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/...97_article.htm
In October 2011 UK doctors were warned that this antibiotic may now be resistant.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15238613

TB is worrying though as it is still the second largest disease in terms of fatalities in the world. This resistance probably has something to do with over using antibiotics over the last 50 years or so.

[Claudius Gothicus]

It was a matter of time before some strains of TB would actually surpass our current antibiotics. Let's hope that it doesn't jump from it's currently endemic status in southern Africa to an epidemic outbreak of extensive proportions.

[Sphere]

No need to worry ...

[Icewolf]

Holy ... I had no idea TB was so deadly!! Now I be scared

[hellheaven1987]

Holy ... I had no idea TB was so deadly!! Now I be scared

TB's problem is that the bacteria would form a "cover" to prevent antibiotic reach them, hence it takes very long time to completely cure TB. Furthermore, I remember about 90% of TB patients would not have symptoms and indeed many remain as carrier for life - which means it is very difficult to calculate how many TB patients actually exist - but that also means if you got TB your chance of dying is less than 10%, better than crazy virus infection such as Ebola (about 80% of death rate, basically you bleed to death).

And to put a side note, TB was the top killer during WWI, particularly for the survivors of poison gas attack (exclude mustard gas here) who, after breathed in gas such as chlorine gas, damaged their lung tissue badly (since chlorine form HCl with water, which means you literally breathed in HCl into your lung and burned the lung cells) and allowed TB bacteria to infect damaged tissue easily. Many survivors of 1915 campaign would die due to TB in 1918 campaign, caused a heavy shortage of manpower.

[Exarch]

the adeptus medicus will find a good flamer to cure the stain of Nurgle

[Claudius Gothicus]

If TB becomes a world-wide threat again I only have one wish... can we go back to calling it consumption? that was a far cooler name

[Adar]

Horrible news, great timing. I just finished a project application to increase bacterial vulnerability to antibiotics .

Sadly, the grant won't be for me but at least my friends will have a good time.

[Col. Tartleton]

If TB becomes a world-wide threat again I only have one wish... can we go back to calling it consumption? that was a far cooler name

I'm with you.

[Phier]

I expect the solution will be quarantine, for the incurable, and if a antibiotic is developed, they would have to be quarantined until the disease was gone lest they stop taking their antibiotic to early.

[Ludicus]

... they would have to be quarantined until the disease was gone

It´s a standard procedure:until culture conversion is documented.

--

...whether the BCG vaccination actually works...

Vaccination with BCG probably does not affect the risk for infection after exposure, but it might decrease the risk for progression from infection to disease.

[Magicman2051]

Quarantine has worked in the past, even in the absence of a readily available treatment. It'll work again.

[Logios]

Source

... This probably is worst news I ever read this month. Clearly, our antibiotic is slowly failing and we are out of option against bacteria infection... I don't want our medical technique got knock back to 19th Century...

Interesting subject. And yes, it is quite unfortunate that the effort to stop TB is not as successful as it could be. The pathogen in question is a mycobacterium, not a bacterium (sorry for nitpicking) and many non-pathogenic "cousins" of it exists. Being exposed to one of these before vaccination could prevent the traditional BCG (Bovine Calmette-Guérin) vaccine from working while this exposure would generally not protect against TB. Because this vaccine is not fully effective a need for treatment with antibiotics exists, but as mentioned antibiotic resistance is increasingly becoming a problem.

TB is worrying though as it is still the second largest disease in terms of fatalities in the world. This resistance probably has something to do with over using antibiotics over the last 50 years or so.

It has more to do with cures not being completed as mentioned in the OP article. If you click on some of the links on this you will find:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12224172
Where a new vaccine is reported to have been in successful pre-clinical (animal testing) trials and is ready to move into clinical trials (tests in human subjects). This however will take several years before these are completed, and the probability of succesful clinical trials are usually below 50%. Another article linking to this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7913190.stm
describes the use of compounds that sensitize the pathogen to antibiotics - answer to OP here maybe, but remember the long development times for drugs. Clavulanic acid mentioned here is already used in some existing "last resort" antibiotics against resistant infections.

Horrible news, great timing. I just finished a project application to increase bacterial vulnerability to antibiotics .

Sadly, the grant won't be for me but at least my friends will have a good time.

Is it something like that you applied for or another approach. (Are you at liberty to tell us). It sounds to me like your friend will be having more of a busy time
A radical approach could perhaps be to artificially "awaken" the pathogen prior to vaccination or treatment by using compounds that affect the mycobacteriums genetic regulation, but this of course smells like disaster as well.
A large factor in all this (my opinion here of course) is that research funding for TB is a bit hard to come by since the end user will not be able to pay a large amount per dose compared to what the average cancer patient can. Returns on investments will therefore be meagre compared to what you can earn on cancer medicines even if these are only slightly more efficient than existing ones.

[Stario]

My best advice is to get your BCG vaccination and don't bathe/drink water downstream of where you cremate your dead.

[hellheaven1987]

The pathogen in question is a mycobacterium, not a bacterium (sorry for nitpicking)

What is the difference? From my understanding both are under Bacteria Kingdom.

[Logios]

What is the difference? From my understanding both are under Bacteria Kingdom.

Sorry for being unclear here. The Mycobacterium genus is of course a part of the Bacteria kingdom. They are just so different from what is usually associated with bacteria (E.coli, Bacillus, ect.) that a distinction is often made, even if not entirely correct.

[hellheaven1987]

Sorry for being unclear here. The Mycobacterium genus is of course a part of the Bacteria kingdom. They are just so different from what is usually associated with bacteria (E.coli, Bacillus, ect.) that a distinction is often made, even if not entirely correct.

Not sure what exactly make Mycobacterium special besides its exceptional thick cell wall. Besides that, it shares all physical feature of bacteria.

[Logios]

Not sure what exactly make Mycobacterium special besides its exceptional thick cell wall. Besides that, it shares all physical feature of bacteria.

They are hard to classify as either Gram positive or Gram negative. Bacteria generally are generally very clearly either the one or the other. They are also pretty resistant to chemical interactions bacause of that thick cell wall. I found something non-wiki that describes them more:
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/2can/genomes/ba...erculosis.html

Nanotech will replace Antibiotics in the next centuary, we will combat it but only after a few endemics first before Nanotech gets some serious funding and development going.

Interesting, I did not know that (knew of other medical applications of nanotech). Did some googling and found something interesting on the subject, even one specific on TB:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...stant-bacteria
http://www.scidev.net/en/features/ca...inst-tb-1.html
If you have some better sources for this then feel free to post them.