WHO study: MDR-TB infection rate reaches highest ever level

The occurrence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis has reached its highest ever level, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. The study, entitled Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance in the World, is based on information collected between 2002 and 2006 from 90,000 TB patients in 81 countries around the world.

The report provides further evidence of the diseases' link to HIV with, for example, the recorded incidence of MDR-TB infection in Latvia and the Ukraine among HIV patients being around double that seen in the HIV-negative TB-infected population. In addition, the survey reveals that cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a virtually untreatable form of the disease, have been recorded in as many as 45 of the countries that participated.