Officials in Nepal confirmed the presence of patients with the XDR strain in Nepal. Devendra Bahadur Pradhan, director of Nepal Tuberculosis Prevention Program, said at least eight patients have been diagnosed with XDR in Nepal.
"The strain is untreatable with existing drugs," Pradhan said.
Although antibiotics can cure "normal" tuberculosis, many patients have failed to take the full six- to nine-month treatment course of existing drugs, leading germs to develop resistance. Doctors prescribing the wrong medicines and shortages of drugs in low-income countries have exacerbated these problems, Reuters said.
A program organized at Academy Hall, Kamaladi in Kathmandu to mark World TB Day on Tuesday.
Bijay Rai
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Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis fails to respond to two or more of the most potent tuberculosis drugs, and can take two years or more to treat. Extensively-drug-resistant – or XDR – strains are even less responsive, defying nearly all existing tuberculosis drugs. A recent South Korean study found that half of the people infected with XDR-TB die as a result.
While tuberculosis is found predominantly in developing countries, the XDR-strain has been reported in both rich and poor nations, partly because developed economies have better screening and diagnostic technology to identify it.
To date, XDR-TB has been found in Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Lesotho, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
World Health Organisation experts say people with weakened immune systems face the biggest risks from highly drug-resistant tuberculosis, making its presence in southern Africa and other areas with high HIV/AIDS rates a particular concern.
The mingling of tuberculosis patients and immune-suppressed HIV sufferers in health clinics and hospital waiting rooms, as well as other crowded areas such as refugee camps and prisons, could prove especially lethal.
U.S. researchers said last month that AstraZeneca´s MERREM I.V., an intravenous antibiotic also called meropenem, used together with clavulanate, sold by GlaxoSmithKline in combination with amoxicillin as the drug Augmentin, killed laboratory-grown strains of XDR-TB. Those researchers plan to launch clinical trials using the drugs in South Korea and in South Africa.
Dr Pushpa Malla, director of National Tuberculosis Center, said currently 12 million people have tuberculosis worldwide, and 40,000 acquire this disease annually. The treatment success rate for the disease in Nepal is 88 percent.
