- To the Voice of America
- publicaffairs@voa.gov
- Washington, DC USA
-
- Sirs --
-
- Your VOA broadcast on May 30 2007 by Joe de Capua, dealing
with the XDR-TB epidemic refers
- link to broadcast:
-
- http://www.voanews.com/english/figleaf/mp3filegenerate.cfm?
-
- As a retired SA medical journalist with years of experience
of the health-care situation on that sub-continent, it is a matter
of growing concern to me that the US news media such as yourselves have
hardly mentioned the fact that XDR-TB has already taken on epidemic form
in South Africa and in neighbouring Lesotho this past month -- and where
it is killing people within 14 to 20 days of infection. The XDR-TB strain's
mutant form in South Africa has escaped out of its previous hospital
environment and is now infecting the population at large -- also killing
previously healthy people who have never been treated with TB or HIV-drugs
ever before.
-
- I frankly can't understand why your journalist Mr de
Capua does not mention this very important fact in this broadcast on May
30 to his African audiences. It's such very important information
because in South Africa, XDR-TB has already escaped and is now not
only co-infecting and killing many HIV+ patients very rapidly -- but
its mutant form, the so-called SA-1 strain, is also infecting previously
healthy people and killing them just as rapidly, within 14 to 20 days.
-
- This is a terrible epidemic as Dr Espinal had pointed
out, and one which the SA government is unable to solve - also because
of its own refusal to quarantine by force (if necessary) any of these
highly-infectious XDR-TB patients who are now refusing treatment in that
country.
-
- Healthy people are now also being infected who had
never been treated for HIV or TB before: a young man, 18 years old, died
of XDR-TB at his home in Cape Town; a 41-year old woman got XDR-TB
from someone who visited her at home (she was housebound, being blind)
and she died within 14 days of diagnosed XDR-TB at a Klerksdorp hospital;
and even a six-month old baby was infected with at her Cape province
home. These had been perfectly healthy people just a few months ago.
Clearly it is important for the world to know that XDR-TB has escaped
into the population of South Africa and is now spreading rapidly, infecting
at least 1,054 people per 100,000/population.
-
- Dr Espinal pointed out correctly in your broadcast that
there was no medicine which could cure XDR-TB and that that was the reason
it was so 'scary". Indeed it is proving to be very scary in South
Africa.
-
- It would be a genuine service to the entire world if
VOA explained not only why and how the SA government's anti-scientific
obstructionism is causing the disease to spread rapidly -- but also
what preventative measures are now being taken by the USA government:
exactly how any Western governments going to stop XDR-TB from infecting
their own populations if they don't know that it has already taken on epidemic
form in SA?
-
- Particularly dreary is the fact that the World Health
Organisation has known about this "scary" TB-HIV mutant SA-1strain
since at least the year 2003, when it was first identified in South Africa
and the first patients started dying from it. From all the medical literature
I have read about this I have determined that at least 2-million people
have already died from this XDR-TB infection inside South Africa
since 2000.
-
- The Voice of America has in my view, a very strong
responsibility to accurately inform not only the American public about
this very real health threat, but also the rest of the world it broadcasts
to. The World Health Organisation's XDR-TB task force seems to be micr-managing
the news media about this epidemic -- 'news media management' which
could have very deadly results: the World Soccer Cup 2010 tournaments
start in SA from 2009. Some 350,000 young soccer fans from all over
the world are expected to travel to SA to attend these and participate
in them.
-
- Thus the SA-1 mutant XDR-TB strain would also spread
very rapidly worldwide -- all the flights to and from South Africa
to other continents inevitably last longer than 8 hours -- the length
of time which the WHO has now established (after the Speaker case) would
endanger fellow-passengers of infectious TB-patients during flights, in
spite of the new filtration systems which airlines have installed.
-
- The rest of the world would thus also face a real threat
from this XDR-TB strain even if their populations aren't as "immune-deficient"
as they are in southern Africa, healthy people also face equal infection
risks from this strain. As was pointed out in your interview, there
is no vaccine nor medicine against XDR-TB.
-
- This particular infection is also spreading like
wildfire throughout southern Africa because of the SA government's obtuse
refusal to quarantine infectious patients who are unwilling to remain in
hospital. See her TV-interview about this: <>http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz5lI3Hc5Xc
-
- Ms M K Matsau, a deputy-general of South Africa's
Department of Health (DOH) has been insisting since March 2007
that "forcibly-detained" infectious XDR-TB patients at the
high-security state-run Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital in Rietfontein
near Johannesburg must be released back into the community at once because
'their human rights are being violated'. Her department is even financially
supporting a pending class-action law suit at the Johannesburg High Court
to get them released. There are at least 168 drug-resistant patients in
quarantine there and the hospital refuses to release them.
-
- Ms Matsau's TV-interview:
- April 5 2007: "There are much more acceptable
humane ways of dealing with this infection control than forcibly incarcerating
anybody."
- <>http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz5lI3Hc5Xc
-
- From Adriana Stuijt
- retired South African medical journalist (ex-Sunday Times
of Johannesburg)
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