Supertuberculosis

Sadly, this isn’t a post about crime-fighting tuberculosis (even though that would be cool). Ann emailed us this link last week about totally drug-resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB).

There have been at least 12 patients who have contracted TDR-TB in India, though this first popped up in Iran in 2009. (Clearly I read the wrong magazines. That was, what, three years ago? Why are we just hearing about this now?!)

The drug-defeatable (yeah, that’s a word now) kind of TB is already a hard disease to kill, and is one of the biggest killers out there (well, out of the tiny, need-to-be-seen-with-a-microscope brand of killers, anyway). It’s also hard to treat. According to the article,

“At the best of times, TB treatment is difficult, requiring at least 6 months of pill combinations that have unpleasant side effects and must be taken long after the patient begins to feel well.”

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