TB is back with a vengeance

TB is one of those forgotten diseases - because it was eradicated from the Western world, it's profile dropped, but it hadn't gone away - and because the people who were taking drugs to cure their TB, tended to not complete the course, resistant strains developed, and now are becoming more common. In parts of former Soviet Union, Africa, China and India the cases of the multi-resistant TB are growing, resulting in less effective treatment and people dying. Many Western health care staff were unused to dealing with TB, but with the growth of air travel the numbers of people infected with TB in the West has grown. Urgent research is needed to develop new drugs to control the spread before it becomes endemic once more, and to possible develop a vaccine.

'Virtually untreatable' TB found