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2009-12-27 05:29:55 - Epidemic Hazard - USA EDIS CODE: EH-20091227-24327-USA
Date & Time: 2009-12-27 05:29:55 [UTC]
Area: USA, State of Florida, , Lantana Number of Infected person(s): 1
Not confirmed information! Description: Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood. Doctors say Juarez's incessant hack was a sign of what they have both dreaded and expected for years—this country's first case of a contagious, aggressive, especially drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. The Associated Press learned of his case, which until now has not been made public, as part of a six-month look at the soaring global challenge of drug resistance. Juarez's strain—so-called extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB—has never before been seen in the U.S., according to Dr. David Ashkin, one of the nation's leading experts on tuberculosis. XXDR tuberculosis is so rare that only a handful of other people in the world are thought to have had it. "He is really the future," Ashkin said. "This is the new class that people are not really talking too much about. These are the ones we really fear because I'm not sure how we treat them." Forty years ago, the world thought it had conquered TB and any number of other diseases through the new wonder drugs: Antibiotics. U.S. Surgeon General William H. Stewart announced it was "time to close the book on infectious diseases and declare the war against pestilence won." Today, all the leading killer infectious diseases on the planet—TB, malaria and HIV among them—are mutating at an alarming rate, hitchhiking their way in and out of countries. The reason: Overuse and misuse of the very drugs that were supposed to save us. Just as the drugs were a manmade solution to dangerous illness, the problem with them is also manmade. It is fueled worldwide by everything from counterfeit drugmakers to the unintended consequences of giving drugs to the poor without properly monitoring their treatment. "Drug resistance is starting to be a very big problem. In the past, people stopped worrying about TB and it came roaring back. We need to make sure that doesn't happen again," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was himself infected with tuberculosis while caring for drug-resistant patients at a New York clinic in the early '90s. "We are all connected by the air we breathe, and that is why this must be everyone's problem." This April, the World Health Organization sounded alarms by holding its first drug-resistant TB conference in Beijing. The message was clear—the disease has already spread to all continents and is increasing rapidly. Even worse, WHO estimates only 1 percent of resistant patients received appropriate treatment last year. "We have seen a huge upburst in resistance," said CDC epidemiologist Dr. Laurie Hicks.
The name of Hazard: (XXDR) TB
Species: Human
Status: Confirmed
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