Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: New TB strains worry experts Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 15:07:56 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \SS (WS) \HD New TB strains worry experts \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS New strains of tuberculosis attacking AIDS victims can kill in a matter of weeks, and one expert in the field suggested yesterday that people refusing TB treatment should be quarantined. Tuberculosis is easily spread - often through a sneeze or a cough - and until recently has been easily cured with antibiotics. Scientists attending the opening of the World Congress on Tuberculosis worried, though, about new strains that resist traditional drug therapy and the swiftness with which the disease can kill people already infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. "The return of this old scourge has created considerable anxiety, particularly in those health professionals who have not seen it before and in the general public," Dr. David Rogers told the hundreds of scientists. "There is no question that we have a large problem on our hands." As many as 15 million Americans are infected with tuberculosis, but in almost all the disease lies dormant, held in check by the body's immune system. If the immune system is weakened, as it is in a person carrying HIV, sickness can develop either from a long-held tuberculosis infection or from one recently acquired. Among such people, the disease can be fatal in a matter of weeks. "Estimates of the chances of HIV-positive individuals acquiring or reactivating tuberculosis run from sixfold to 500-fold that of HIV-negative persons," said Dr. Rogers, a professor of medicine at Cornell University and the vice chairman of the National Commission on AIDS. Dr. Rogers said better screening methods are needed to detect tuberculosis, along with developing inexpensive drugs to fight the more recent strains. He also said society must move to protect itself from those who carry the disease but will not cooperate in their treatment. "In situations where compliance is uncertain, directly observed therapy must be employed and mechanisms must be in place to contain or quarantine the occasional bad actor who refuses treatment," Dr. Rogers said. Before the development of antibiotics, quarantine was a common way of dealing with tuberculosis. Those infected were often confined in large sanitariums. In the United States, the death rate from tuberculosis last year was less than one-tenth of what it was in 1953, according to government statistics. Last year, some 26,283 cases of tuberculosis were reported in the United States, capping several years of increase since the mid-1980s. Health officials have identified 253 cases of drug-resistant strains in hospitals and a prison in New York, Florida and New Jersey, but Dr. Dixie Snider, assistant director for prevention services at the Centers for Disease Control, said the strains have been reported in more than 30 states. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM