‘Deadly’ TB poses European threat

TUBERCULOSIS in a new, more deadly form poses the disease’s greatest threat to Europe since World War II, world health officials said yesterday.

Drug-resistant strains of the disease are lurking just beyond the European Union’s borders, according to the UN and Red Cross.

The high levels of multi-drug resistant TB in Baltic countries, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the emergence of a new extremely drug-resistant strain of TB, have led international health officials to create the “Stop TB Partnership in Europe” initiative.

TB, a respiratory illness spread by coughing and sneezing, is the world’s deadliest curable infectious disease. The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.7 million people died from it in 2004.

Of the 20 countries with the highest rates of multi-drug resistant TB, 14 are in “the European region”, according to a recent global survey by the WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

European countries also have the highest rate of extreme drug-resistant strain, known as XDR-TB.

“TB has always been low on the European Union agenda,” said Michael Luhan, of the Geneva-based Red Cross Federation.

“The purpose of this partnership is to stimulate a much greater sense of concern, engagement and commitment on the part of the EU to address this problem in its own region.”

Migration and EU expansion could change things: “Not a large number of cases are being imported into the EU from Eastern Europe, but it’s not necessarily going to stay that way with continued enlargement.”