- Dr Jerome Amir Singh , head of Ethics and Health Law
at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa, has
warned in an article written on an African-based website that a global
XDR-TB was a very real possibility because the SA still refuses to quarantine
XDR-TB patients - instead treating most of them in crowded outpatient
clinics where they rapidly infect others with the incurable, fast-killing
lung disease:
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- JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, July 5 2007 -- "In September
2006, the World Health Organization announced that Tugela Ferry -- a small
town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa -- was host to the largest outbreak
of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (xdr-tb) ever recorded. The
53 people first diagnosed with the disease had a median survival time
from sputum collection of just 16 days. Now thousands are being infected.
Yet despite this growing crisis, South African officials have been reluctant
to consider mandatory isolation of infected individuals, believing such
a measure could ' lead to stigma and the disease being driven underground.'
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- Dr Singh has once again issued a public statement in
which he pleads with the SA authorities to immediately start quarantining
xdr-tb patients to stop the deadly, incurable epidemic from spreading
all over the world -- and to also start paying their relatives support
money for the long-term loss of quarantined wage- earners.
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- See the news clip with DOH deputy director Ms Matsau
explaining this policy:
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- LINK: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz5lI3Hc5Xc
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- A global epidemic a very real threat, he writes, warning
that the present anti-quarantine approach of the SA government, 'while
politically correct, is unwise and thwarts efforts to prevent the outbreak
from becoming a regional or even a global epidemic".
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- Dr Singh writes: "There are simply insufficient
resources to cater for everyone infected with xdr-tb This means that (potentially
dozens of) XDR-TB patients are being treated as outpatients, or at general
hospitals where they share wards with people infected with other strains
of TB, putting potentially curable patients at risk of acquiring a possibly
incurable disease. (...)
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- "Given the critical lack of hospital beds, home-based
care has been mooted as one option for treating xdr-tb patients (in SA).
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- "But the disease's airborne nature and its lethality
to those with immune systems compromised by hiv-aids make this a less
than optimal solution.
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- It would be better to have dedicated community-based
isolation units, where XDR-TB patients can be treated without putting
other members of the local community at risk. Of course, establishing
and maintaining such units will have profound financial and logistic
implications and may not be feasible or sustainable in poor countries
unless -- or even if -- they are backed by investment from the international
community.
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- Read the entire statement:
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- http://allafrica.com/stories/200707050839.html?
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