A new study, published online in The Lancet, examined the long-term outcomes for patients with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa.  The researchers followed a cohort of 107 patients from three South African provinces between March 2008 and August 2012.  The patients had been diagnosed within 5.5 years prior to the start of the study.  Overall, researchers found that long-term outcomes for this group were poor, regardless of their comorbidities.

Alarmingly, these patients were being released to infect others.  Since appropriate long-stay or palliative care facilities are scarce, substantial numbers of patients with this form of tuberculosis who have failed treatment and have positive sputum cultures are being discharged from hospital and are likely to transmit disease into the wider community.  Researchers urge policy makers to implement interventions to minimize disease spread by those that have failed treatment while scientists continue to work to test new treatments and combined regimens.

According to Medical News Today, Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  The bacteria can easily spread from person to person through airborne particles.  The disease primarily affects the lungs, but it can also affect other organs. Typical symptoms of the disease include persistent coughing (in which a person can bring up blood), weight loss, night sweats, a fever, tiredness and fatigue, and loss of appetite.

In 2011, almost 9 million people around the world became ill with tuberculosis, and there were approximately 1.4 million related deaths.  TB is treated with multiple antibiotics, which need to be taken for approximately 6 months. Some forms of TB are drug-resistant, meaning some patients may have to take antibiotics for up to 18 months in order to combat infection.  There are some indications in new research that suggest that adding vitamin C to existing TB drugs may kill drug-resistant bacteria.

Tuberculosis is a notifiable disease.  MedlinePlus describes notifiable diseases, also known as reportable diseases, as diseases considered to be of great public health importance. Local, state, and national agencies (for example, county and state health departments or the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) require that these diseases be reported when they are diagnosed by doctors or laboratories.  Reporting allows for the collection of statistics that show how often the disease occurs. This helps researchers identify disease trends and track disease outbreaks. This information can help control future outbreaks.