INDIAN doctors have reported the country’s first cases of “totally drug-resistant tuberculosis,” a long-feared and virtually untreatable form of the killer lung disease.

A VIRTUALLY untreatable form of tuberculosis (TB) may be already present in Ireland, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) said yesterday.

A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa, the World Health Organisation said today, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the bacteria.