Via the Sunday Mercury: Deadly drug-resistant strain of Tuberculosis could hit Britain says Birmingham consultant. Excerpt:
Health chiefs have told how the deadly drug-resistant strain of Tuberculosis which has claimed three lives in India could strike in the Midlands.
And Dr Martin Dedicoat, a consultant in infectious diseases at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, said precautions have been taken to safeguard against a breakout.
But the medic stressed the risk of contracting the “totally drug resistant” form of TB in Britain was “only small” – despite rates of the disease more than doubling over the last two decades in the region.
Currently around 1,000 people contract TB every year in the West Midlands and around half of these live in Birmingham.
Experts say the increase is due to immigration from countries such as India and former Soviet states where TB is endemic.
Dr Dedicoat, aged 44, spent a decade working with TB sufferers in the townships of South Africa.
He said: “There is a small chance that someone could bring the drug-resistant form of TB into the UK without them knowing it, before it re-awakens in their body at a later date and is spread on.
“We have strong links with countries like India and that is part of the reason why we have seen such an increase in TB in the last two decades. “As many as two billion people in the world today are carrying TB and many won’t know it.
“But in Birmingham we have some of the best screening labs in the country so if the drug resistant form of TB is identified, which it would be very quickly, plans are already in place on how to respond to the situation.
“The individual involved would be immediately quarantined, and as their condition would most likely be terminal, we would have to isolate them as quickly as possible.”
