Tuberculosis is not a thing of the past, as it might seem. This disease is still dangerous, and maybe even more dangerous than several decades ago, because some of the bacteria that cause it have become resistant to standard treatment. Could we therefore face an increase in tuberculosis incidence?

Tuberculosis is no longer a disease of poverty, as it was years ago. Because although most of the cases still occur in poor countries in Asia, Africa or the countries of the former Soviet republics, more and more oftentuberculosisattacks the inhabitants of the most civilized regions. And you don't have to look long for examples. What is worse, doctors often do not realize that they may be dealing with tuberculosis - they have been weaned from mycobacterial patients for years

Antibiotic resistance of tuberculosis strains is increasing

Some time ago, a message circulated around the world that was carefully hidden for a long time. Well, in the United States there was a case of extremely aggressive, extremely resistant to treatment tuberculosis, marked with the symbol XXDR (this is no longer an "ordinary" extremely resistant form - XDR-TB, but an extremely extreme variant of it). A young 19-year-old boy fell ill. It is true that the doctors did not reveal his social status or he suffers from other ailments, but from the skimpy information one can guess that it is not a lump. The patient's treatment took over two years before he was brought into such a state that he could continue his treatment in a sanatorium.

And it is precisely the cases of such severe drug-resistant tuberculosis that we can expect more and more often. This is favored by tourist traffic to countries where cases of resistant and extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis dominate, international business contacts, business trips to the eastern border, etc. It is really not difficult to get infected.

Are we in danger of an epidemic of tuberculosis?

Difficult to diagnose tuberculosis

It was supposed to be the journey of her life. An employee of a PR agency went to India for three months. Properly equipped, secured with medicines necessary in such a country. She was fine the whole time, not even having traveler's diarrhea.

In a few weeks after returning, she felt somehow more tired. She still wanted to sleep, sweated profusely at night, and was in light statessubfebrile. At first, it put a lot of stress on my job as it got more stressful. Finally she went to the doctor. He ruled a viral infection, prescribed generally available drugs. They didn't help. She felt more and more weakened.

Successive doctors made different diagnoses. Bronchitis, pneumonia, flu, mononucleosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, but somehow none of them thought of tuberculosis. They didn't even direct her for a chest X-ray. Fortunately, when the first wise one finally found, it was not too late for effective therapy. However, making the correct diagnosis was not easy, because the first X-ray did not show anything disturbing, which is not surprising, as it is not always possible to distinguish the image of tuberculosis from similar lesions in the lungs), only other specialist examinations, e.g. tomography and magnetic resonance imaging as well as microbiological diagnostics finally clarified the matter. The treatment lasted about 8 months. The girl is he althy, but still weakened by the treatment.

Tuberculosis: are we in danger of an epidemic?

In 2012, per 100,000 In Germany, there were 5.3 registered cases of this disease (in Poland, 22.2 per 100 thousand). The morbidity among children is also increasing. According to the latest research from the University of Kiel, Europe may be faced with a tuberculosis epidemic that will cost billions of euros. As calculated by researchers from Kiel, in Europe, treatment of tuberculosis patients already costs over EUR 500 million annually.

As assessed by dr hab. Maria Korzeniewska-Koseła, head of the Department of Epidemiology and Organization for Fighting Tuberculosis at the Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases in Warsaw, Poland is among the countries with a good epidemiological situation. But tuberculosis is still much more common in Poland than in Western countries. And as we are more open to the world and doctors have become less sensitive to the symptoms of this disease, the situation may worsen. Professionals are not of good cheer at all.

Category:

Infectious diseases