Worst Fears Realized In S. Africa TB Scare

CBS News: As Concerns Grow About TB In The U.S., A Look At An Outbreak In South Africa

(CBS)  This story was written by CBS News producer Sarah Carter in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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"It was the height of summer in February 2005 and the hospital was filled with patients with both TB and HIV/AIDS," recalled Dr. Tony Moll, the anti-retroviral program manager at the Church of Scotland Hospital in Tugela Ferry.

"I remember there were two patients who just weren't getting better. I don't know why, but I had this terrible feeling that something really sinister was happening," Moll said.

In most instances, HIV/AIDS positive patients being treated with both anti-retrovirals and tuberculosis drugs improved, Dr. Moll explained, but not these two. "They were getting worse by the hour."

With a lack of testing facilities in his rural hospital in South Africa's Kwazulu-Natal province, Dr. Moll asked for special permission to have the sputum samples of 45 patients sent to Durban and tested for resistance to TB drugs.

Nurses collected samples from the two very ill patients, as well as 43 others being treated with TB and anti-retroviral drugs, and sent them off. By the time the results came back eight weeks later, 10 of the patients were dead, including the two who had been very ill.

Of the 45 samples, 10 were resistant to all six TB drugs they tested for.

"I got a cold shiver, with such fear in my heart," Moll said. "I thought, 'This is airborne. Could I be infected? Could my staff be infected?' To go into a new realm of XDR-TB, which is basically untreatable, was almost unthinkable," he said, using the acronym for Extremely Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis.

Moll's worst fears eventually were realized: Four of the hospital nurses died in those first few months. From that point on, the hospital began identifying more and more patients — and in almost all cases, the patients with XDR-TB were dead before the lab results were back. Most die within 16 days of being identified as a possible XDR-TB case. The mortality rate of XDR-TB is 84 percent.

Since the first two cases, close to three years ago, doctors at the Church of Scotland Hospital have identified 266 people with XDR-TB.

That is just one small hospital. Across South Africa, doctors in all nine provinces have reported XDR-TB cases.

"It seems to be simmering, with increasing numbers each month," says Moll said. "It's not explosive, but it's slow, insidious, increasing numbers."

With recent U.S. fears of tuberculosis being stoked by a Georgia man's trans-Atlantic travels while infected with XDR-TB, South Africa's struggles serve as an ominous reminder of how deadly the disease can be.

The South African government has installed extractor fans in all TB wards and hospital staff use surgical face masks, but doctors claim there is a lack of good isolation facilities available. It has been reported that small rural clinics and hospitals can sometimes wait for up to three weeks with an XDR-TB patient in a general ward before a bed is available in one of the few urban hospitals better equipped to deal with the disease.

Experts claim a drug to deal specifically with XDR-TB is more than a decade away, so doctors use a combination of six to eight TB drugs to treat it.

Currently, a small group of XDR patients have been treated for more than five months in a Durban hospital, but their results have fallen short of doctors' expectations.

"Ultimately we need prevention, as the current treatment regime just isn't the way to go," Moll said. "The bulk of the patients just die so quickly."

[whatithink-2009]

Many people always say that we should only care about "home" when thinking about our charity and largess. These types of things should remind us all that "home" is the earth as there are many things out there that know no borders.

[tuckerndfw]

This is just a reminder that regardless how clever humans think we are, we are still subject to the rules of mother nature.

And, she doesn't really care one way or another about human death or suffering.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. One thousand years from now, if humans still exist, someone will be writing about the "plague" (AIDS) of the 20th Century.

While their society is attempting to invent cures for the diseases that plague them.

[larry0091]

People are just missing the forest for the trees. But people don't want to here that: they'd rather just keep adding water and continue complaining why it's gettin' heavier.

[sharncedar]

Drug-resistant TB is created within AIDS patients, as this article once again points out. It is another benefit of the gay community, another blessing they are giving us. It should be a criminal act to give someone with AIDs any form of antibiotics, the AIDs patient is the perfect incubator for drug-resistant diseases of all types. TB is the most scary, there are others being created each day by our lovely little gay community. Because AIDs is nto a disease, it is a political minority, to be protected with special rights no matter what the cost.

Perhaps the Islamic are not so far off - they would kill these *** and be done with it. And thus they will live whilst we die. We could handle it in a more compassionate way than them, but we need to get some political courage to stand up to the right-to-AIDs community and treat this disease in a sane manner, with quarantine and refuse certain of the most important anitbitoitcs to people with compromised immune systems. But I doubt we will until it is way too late. Government in chaos, culture in chaos, people distracted and in chaos.

[phoenix1218]

Drug-resistant TB is created within AIDS patients, as this article once again points out(((IT DOES NOT SAY THAT HIV/AIDS PATIENTS CREATE DRUG RESISTANT TB))). It is another benefit of the gay community(((NOT EVERY PERSON WITH AIDS/HIV IS GAY)))...It should be a criminal act to give someone with AIDs any form of antibiotics (((THAT WOULD NOT SOLVE ANYTHING)))...Perhaps the Islamic are not so far off - they would kill these *** and be done with it. And thus they will live whilst we die. We could handle it in a more compassionate way than them, but we need to get some political courage to stand up to the right-to-AIDs community and treat this disease in a sane manner, with quarantine (((I BELIEVE THEY ALREAY TRIED THAT WHEN AIDS/HIV WAS FIRST DISCOVERED, IT DIDN'T WORK THEN AND WILL NOT WORK NOW)))Posted by SharnCedar (((MY COMMENTS ARE IN THE TRIPLE PARENTHESSIS)))

[infidel_us]

SHHHHHHHHH....Bush will want to throw another $30B of OUR money down there!!!!!

[consciousnes]

I agree with "whatithink", this world of our is getting smaller and amaller. What happens in Africa can effect us in a very short time. With two cases in the United States already, how soon will it be spreading uncontrollably by idiots that think it is no big thing. "Lets just jump on a plane and head for Europe and Canada, maybe to Mexico or China.
I would rather see $30 billion spent on helping the African contentent solve this before it gets here.

[rematenaj]

Just so you all know, a surgical mask does not offer protect against TB. There are specific masks for protection from TB. If surgical masks are being used in South Africa, this is a big part of the disease spread.

[superdem]

The vast majority of AIDS sufferers are heterosexual. The last I heard the disease was thought to be introduced to humans from a simian source when humans ate infected bush meat. Evolution did the rest. Disease organisms don't care what your sexual preferences or politics are - male to female, male to male, mother to child, it's all the same to the virus. It's sad that homophobia continues to raise its ugly head when AIDS and TB are discussed. Gay groups have been in the forefront of the struggle against this disease, putting up large amounts of money and fearlessly confronting the methods of transmission from a scientific standpoint. It is largely straight, conservative societies that inject religious and sexual phobias into the mix, debating the reality of the disease, refusing to promote condoms, and ignoring sexual education. Our own government is guilty of this. Sadly, some folks will take any opportunity to bash ***.

[lars008-2009]

and how many illegals are carrying that and other diseases into the usa...

probably why the usa has this extensively drug-resistant TB

[docadams3]

Everyone likes to blame the illegals, but this guy was a rich jerk, flying all over Europe.

Who needs terrorist with biological weapons when you've got guys like this? It's the biological equivalent of drunk driving. The 1918 pandemic flu killed far more people than any terrorist ever could. We're aiming at the wrong target. By the way, where was Homeland Security?

[lars008-2009]

Everyone likes to blame the illegals, but this guy was a rich jerk, flying all over Europe.

Who needs terrorist with biological weapons when you've got guys like this? It's the biological equivalent of drunk driving. The 1918 pandemic flu killed far more people than any terrorist ever could. We're aiming at the wrong target. By the way, where was Homeland Security?
Posted by docadams3 at 03:03 PM : May 31, 2007

and where do you suppose extensively drug-resistant TB is coming from... it is being brought here by third worlders... illegals...

[rudy654-2009]

"where do you suppose extensively drug-resistant TB is coming from... it is being brought here by third worlders... illegals... "

Such infections have been on the rise for some time now, and the suspicion has been the overuse of antibiotics. These infections don't care if you're legal, illegal, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, American, Mexican, Japanese, etc. And they don't care whether or not you're an idiot. Which you obviously are.

[ubrew12]

Airborne Drug-Resistent TB, 84% mortality rate.
THIS IS SERIOUS! The worry about HIV/AIDS has always been that it could mutate into something with an airborne infection vector, like TB. Hope the gov't is willing to throw some serious cash at this problem, 1/10 of what they threw away in Iraq. This is a SERIOUS issue, not play-time like 'bringing democracy to Iraq'. The danger, with this administration, is that they won't see a photo-op in it, will ignore it, and it'll blow up into something like the 1918 flu pandemic.

[gunnerv1]

lars008, yes, but where did he get it? Who did he come in contact with. XDR-TB is not spontainous.

[jennmarie620]

To all those of you blaming XDR-TB on AIDS/HIV, show me where in this artile it says that AIDS/HIV is responsiblt for the formation of this airborn disease? TB has existed on this planet long before AIDS/HIV and it's a virus - it mutates, it changes and after a hundred years of using antibiotics to battle it, TB has found a way around it all to survive.

Do you know what's even scarier than this right now? The amount of soldiers in the United States military who have been exposed to TB but can't be vaccinated or treated because they are fatally allergice to the TB drugs out there already.

AIDS/HIV and the "gay community" have about as much responsibility in the mutation of TB as the Bohemians had in the introduction of TB back in the late 1800's/early 1900's - or as much responsibility as the "Heretics" had in the Black Plague in Medieval times.

Grow up, people and stop using your fear in place of your brains.

[lars008-2009]

lars008, yes, but where did he get it? Who did he come in contact with. XDR-TB is not spontainous.
Posted by gunnerv1 at 03:58 PM : May 31, 2007

hmmmmm did he get it from his illegal mistress???

and how many illegals are carrying that and other diseases into the usa...

probably why the usa has this extensively drug-resistant TB

now will the usa secure their borders???

[toldyouso21]

Drug-resistant TB is created within AIDS patients, as this article once again points out(((IT DOES NOT SAY THAT HIV/AIDS PATIENTS CREATE DRUG RESISTANT TB))). It is another benefit of the gay community(((NOT EVERY PERSON WITH AIDS/HIV IS GAYPosted by Phoenix1218 at 12:47 PM : May 31, 2007

Drug resistant pathogens are NOT created by the patients that eventually succumb to them. They are created by the overprescribing of antibiotics and the patients who take them failing to complete the treatment course. If the bacteria are not completely destroyed, they will survive at low levels in the body and learn to get around the small bit of antibiotics still there. SharnCedar has written this misinformation on several threads and must have an anti--gayyyy agenda. But such misinformation helps no one and is patently unfair and ignorant.

Educate yourselves. When given antibiotics for a bacterial infection, take EVERY SINGLE Pill and if you are not better, get tested to make sure you have a bacterial infection and not a viral one since antibiotics can do nothing about viruses. Speaking of which HIV is a virus that makes victims susceptible to almost any illness since their immune systems are compromised.

SharnCedar should be ashamed of themselves--no matter the agenda.

[toldyouso21]

but we need to get some political courage to stand up to the right-to-AIDs community and treat this disease in a sane manner, with quarantine and refuse certain of the most important anitbitoitcs to people with compromised immune systems. But I doubt we will until it is way too late. Government in chaos, culture in chaos, people distracted and in chaos.
Posted by SharnCedar at 12:34 PM : May 31, 2007


I agree that when AIDS was first discovered and able to be tested for, quarantine would have been the way to go, to limit the spread of the disease. But Reagan and others did not have the political courage and now, it is far too late to do this. Deadly Communicable diseases should never have been left up to the discretion of the public. Too many people think only of the short term and themselves.

At this point, the fastest growing AIDS populations are hetero women and teenagers, the disease will eventually reach equilibrium, but not before millions have succumbed. Reagan and others made a disease a politically correct issue and condemned quite a few of us--but this stopped being a "gayyyy" problem a very long time ago. Caused primarily by married men having *** with gay men or hetero women from S.Africa and taking it back to their wives.

[toldyouso21]

would rather see $30 billion spent on helping the African contentent solve this before it gets here.
Posted by Consciousnes at 02:00 PM : May 31, 2007


Uhmmmm. though no one has identified ground zero for this TB, you may wish to know that it also exists in Mexico and Russia, no one knows where it started, but we do know that many people who come into America have it or test positive for exposure, and we do know that of those who test positive at least half the cases are resistant to some antibiotics and a few are resistant to almost all antibiotics--but there are other products we can use although they are dangerous and can also kill the patient, like Amphotericin B. With that drug the patient has a 50/50 chance of either being killed by the drug or the disease.

[toldyouso21]

TB has existed on this planet long before AIDS/HIV and it's a virus - it mutates, it changes and after a hundred years of using antibiotics to battle it, TB has found a way around it all to survive. Posted by jennmarie620 at 04:12 PM : May 31, 2007

Tuberculosis is not a virus. It is a bacteria. If it was a virus, antibiotics would have no effect on it. Antibiotics only work against bacteria. The mutagen rate of bacteria is not very high, what TB and most bacteria do, is get used to the drugs we use against it, and if exposed to levels of antibiotic that are not strong enough to kill it, over time it develops immunity to it. This is what happens when people do not take all of an antibiotic or take antibiotics when they do not need them.

It should be understood that TB is an opportunistic infection. This means it prefers to attack people in a weakened state or with weakened immunity. This means the elderly, babies, asthmatics, AIDs patients, etc--or anyone taking immunosuppressive drugs like arthritic patients. the more immunosuppressed, the easier TB gets a foothold, and the reason it kills is that a weakened body not only has trouble fighting it off--a weakened body cannot withstand aggressive drug treatments either.

[bill1fj]

Pray for the victims.
This is another reason to tighten our border security.
We need to know who is here, where they've been, what have they been exposed to, and have they had the shots and tests they're supposed to have had.
Just something to think about.

[tjb592]

What really frightens me about this guy, is the fact that he claims he wasn't told how serious this was...where did he get his education? Take responsibility for your actions! Blaming this on his doctors was completely ludicrous and irresponsible...some writer will try to make a 'love story' movie out of the whole stupid mess...

[sharncedar]

"TB has existed on this planet long before AIDS/HIV and it's a virus - it mutates, it changes and after a hundred years of using antibiotics to battle it, TB has found a way around it all to survive. "

Ok, as pointed out its a bacteria. The point here that is really wrong is that TB is not one thing, it is billions and billions of individual bacteria. Some of these are resistant to drugs, some are not. In a healthy person, you give them drugs that kill the 90% that are not resistant and their immune systme kills the other 10%. Case closed. In an AIDs patient, you give them drugs that kill the 90%, and their immune system is too weak to kill the remaining 10%. So they multiply. Now the person has full-blown TB again and its 100% drug resistant. that then spreads to other people, instead of being wiped out.

That's why it is a crime against humanity to give antibiotics to someone with AIDs. however, since AIDs is a protected minority that one cannot even ask about, we cannot protect ourselves. The political power of gay people, their enormous personal selfishness, is endangering so many people. But that is what they are all about, personal selfishness at any cost, even death of innocents.

I guess their little fun is more important than human life of the rest of us.

[nothappyatall]

If it's in Africa it's natures way of controlling an out of control population that has stripped it's resources, and the land can't support these people with 8-10 and 12 kids each in an environment that has frequent droughts,and lack of resources for growing food.

[toldyouso21]

Talk about your conspiracy theories and paranoia--how is this for a movie plot: 1. Power hungry president and co want to stay in power so they plot a fake terrorist attack.

2. Knowing how skeptical Americans have become and how another 9/11 moment is unlikely, they decide to use bioterrorism. But first they have to set it up

3. They start by having a fake American Al Qaeda threaten greater 9/11 like attacks on our soil, they do this so we will at least see a connection

4. After that speech, they have a person who pretends to be infected show how easy it is to breach our defenses. Before the elections of 2008, a series of germs are released in America, this is done and the connection to the TB cases and porous borders are made.

5. It turns out the US Naval Accademy grad turned lawyer is really an officer in the military working undercover and this was all a scam. No TB, NO breach but a series of events made to look like one
His globe hopping, a dumb guard and a daddy in law who is connected to super TB bugs and work for the CDC are just props.
6. The super bug hits, Bush, er I mean the President declares a national emergency, Martial law and suspends elections indefinitely.

Oh yeah, prior to all of this maybe on May 9, 2007, the Prez signs an order which gives him the right to declare martial law and pre empt every state's power in case of an emergency.

Well...what do you think? Would the story line work? Or is it too way out there?

[toldyouso21]

If it's in Africa it's natures way of controlling an out of control population that has stripped it's resources, and the land can't support these people with 8-10 and 12 kids each in an environment that has frequent droughts,and lack of resources for growing food.
Posted by newster1 at 11:11 PM : May 31, 2007


First off, humans are animals--and just like other animals the more adverse the environment the higher the number of offspring. This is nature's way of ensuring that at least some of an offspring will survive. the higher up on the food chain or the more safe an environment (no natural enemies) then the less offspring people or animals produce. this is why 3rd world countries have a lot of babies--so that when some die of disease, injuries, wars and/or starvation, a few are left to carry on. This is also why so many immigrant populations produce like crazy.

On another note, I think many disease originate in Africa because Scientifically and genetically that is where most life seems to have originated, including all races of humans. We might want to consider Africa a giant spawning and creation forum--the good and the bad all seem to start there and then like the humans did--spread out from there.

[biglipzulu]

All of sub-Saharan Africa has become a pit of misery after the colonial powers left. Massive scale genocide, baby rape, growth in the number of inept dictators, disease, mismangement of agricultural land, etc. etc. etc. Time to let the whole continent sink or swim and stop bailing it's people and governments out.

[zoltaric]

Sounds like another CIA plot to kill black people. It's all G. W's fault.

[gaye5]

toldyouso21, great story, or it could go like this.
Because of the menopause pill coming under scrutiny the profits of pharmaceutical companies have taken a dive, so they decide to let yet another super bug into the population via immunisation...perhaps this is where all these new diseases are suddenly appearing from..

Well being serious now, perhaps we should wonder as to why we have a massive increase in cot deaths to many thousands, children and adults dying with leukaemia's and cancers like never before, asthma, arthritis, tumours etc on the increase and new health problems appear every year...etc... We very rarely had babies dying from unknown causes... and yes now days we have travel to spread diseases across continents, but I am talking about diseases and symptoms which seems to be totally new on planet earth..
Authorities tell us that we are only noticing it more because we have the technology now to discover what they are... and that is great but why the increase of disease and deaths, just because we didn't have the technology to know the name or what caused these things years ago will not change the equation of the numbers of deaths. Dont they think that we the people, (and I was a nurse) have the brains to see that people are dying younger, more often per head of population than ever before.. Oh well, I suppose the pharmaceutical companies will just come out with another immunisation..