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TB Seen in Many Aliens, Study Says

Jennifer Harper, Washington Times, June 8

A multidrug-resistant tuberculosis known as MDR-TB is persistent in
California, primarily among its “foreign-born” population, and has
serious financial implications for the state’s public-health system,
federal and state health officials said yesterday.

“Treatment for MDR-TB is very expensive—ranging from $200,000 to $1.2
million per person, over an 18—to 24-month time period,” said Dr.
Reuben Granich, a lead investigator for the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, during a press conference in the District
yesterday.

Dr. Granich’s findings were published yesterday in tomorrow’s issue of
the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in an article
co-written with California health officials.

The article studied 38,291 reported tuberculosis cases in California
from 1994 to 2003. Of those, 407 were classified as drug-resistant and
were found mostly in patients from Mexico or the Philippines, Dr.
Granich said.

He added that 84 percent of patients infected with MDR-TB “were
foreign born” and that those infected are four times as likely to die
from the disease and twice as likely to “transmit the disease to
others” than other tuberculosis patients.

{snip}

Cases of tuberculosis, which plateaued in the U.S. after increasing 20
percent in the past two decades, mostly affects the lungs and is
spread through airborne bacteria, often through a cough or sneeze. It
is considered a global problem, carried in latent form by 2 billion
people, or a third of the world’s population, said JAMA editor Dr.
Catherine De Angelis.

“Most Americans think TB has been eradicated. If you believe that,
then I have a bridge I can sell you,” she said.

In the U.S., almost 15,000 cases were reported last year, with 53
percent of those cases found in foreign-born people. The figure was 29
percent in 1993, according to the study.

{snip}

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/06/tb_seen_in_many.php