AT LEAST nine people in Denmark have developed a dangerous,
drug-resistant form of TB in the past three years, reports a hospital in
Copenhagen. Most of the patients are not Danish, or are Danes who picked up the
disease while abroad. The WHO says the number is “surprisingly large” for a
European country.
Kaj Viskum, head of the Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment Centre at the
Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, says drug-resistant strains have evolved
mainly in Asia and Africa because of “poor treatment” of normal TB. “It occurs
generally where a patient has not taken medicine correctly, or has not been
supervised during a course of drugs,” he explains.
The WHO estimates that up to 50 million people worldwide are infected with
drug-resistant TB. An outbreak in Italy in 1992 infected at least 30 people.
Britain had its first case last year.
