We've got the microbes, now where's the money?

A new survey by the World Health Organization shows that drug-resistant tuberculosis is even more widespread than had been feared -- on average, it's present in 5% of new TB cases. That's 500,000 drug-resistant cases a year. If most Americans aren't concerned by this, it's because they don't yet understand that drug-resistant tuberculosis is no longer a disease that threatens mainly HIV and AIDS patients and the Third World poor. It threatens us all. Worldwide, only 8% of TB cases occur in HIV/AIDS patients.

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that can be transmitted by a cough or a sneeze -- much easier to spread than HIV. The multiple-drug resistant, or MDR, strains can usually be cured by a two-year course of antibiotics, which can cost $1,500 to $15,000, compared with $20 to cure ordinary TB. In parts of the former Soviet Union and China, more than one-fifth of all new TB cases are MDR. The extremely drug-resistant, or XDR, strains, which the WHO identified in 45 countries, are essentially incurable.