In its Global Tuberculosis Report for 2013, the World Health Organization
(WHO) estimated a total of 8.6 million tuberculosis (TB) incident cases and 1.3 million
deaths from the disease during the previous year. Most of the drug resistant TB (DRTB)
cases were not even detected due to a variety of weaknesses of national TB
programs. Only 28% of the 300,000 pulmonary TB patients expected to have MDR-TB
in the world were reported; the WHO estimates that globally 3.6% of new TB cases and
20.2% of previously treated cases have MDR-TB, and of those, approximately 9.6%
will have XDR-TB. In 2012 only 5% of the strains from new bacteriologicallyconfirmed
TB cases and 9% of those previously treated for TB were cultured and tested
for drug susceptibility. Outcome of treatment for patients with extensively drug
resistance TB (XDR-TB) in a cohort from 26 countries was dismal with an overall cure
rate of 20% and a 44% death rate.
Keywords: Bacteriological, Cohort, Countries, Death, DOT, Drug, Epidemiology,
Global Report, MDR-TB, Pulmonary, Rates, Resistance, Self-administered, Tuberculosis,
WHO, XDR-TB.
