U.S. News examines growing threat of drug-resistant TB

U.S. News & World Report examines the growing epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), highlighting a "new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warn[ing] that the first cases of 'totally drug-resistant' tuberculosis have been found in South Africa and that the disease is 'virtually untreatable.'" The magazine continues, "Drug-resistant TB isn't just a South African problem," noting "more than 100 cases of [multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB)] have been detected in the United States over the past eight years, and there have been high-profile outbreaks in Peru, Russia, and India over the past decade." According to the WHO, "22 'high burden' countries (including South Africa) account for 80 percent of the world's TB cases," with "the organization's most recent report not[ing] that the 'global burden of TB remains enormous,'" the magazine writes (Koebler, 2/11).