Indian doctors report ‘totally drug-resistant TB’

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.

It’s not the first time highly resistant cases like this have been seen. Since 2003, patients have been documented in Italy and Iran. It has mostly been limited to impoverished areas, and has not spread widely. But experts believe there could be many undocumented cases.

No one expects the Indian TB strains to spread rapidly elsewhere. The airborne disease is mainly transmitted through close personal contact and isn’t nearly as contagious as the flu. Indeed, most of the cases of this kind of TB were not from person-to-person infection, but were mutations that occurred in poorly treated patients.