HealthWatch

New Case Of Deadly TB Strain Confirmed

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) ― A woman who left the hospital even though she'd been diagnosed with a deadly new TB strain is the first confirmed case of the strain in South Africa's most populous province, health officials said Thursday.

The officials said the woman was persuaded to return to a Johannesburg hospital Wednesday and they were researching whom she may have been in contact with — and may have infected — in the days she was out of the hospital.

International health experts had announced earlier this month that the extremely drug-resistant strain was discovered in KwaZulu-Natal province, in eastern South Africa, where it killed 52 of the first 53 patients in whom it was detected. It has so far been found in at least 28 hospitals across South Africa. There are concerns it has spread even further, even across borders, undetected because of lack of diagnostic facilities in an impoverished region.

Health authorities in Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, said Thursday the woman was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital in March after becoming critically ill. She was treated as a patient and outpatient in ensuing months, until a diagnosis last Friday confirmed she was infected with the deadly strain.

"The patient was informed of the seriousness of the situation and that readmission was necessary," said Zanele Zungu, spokeswoman for the Gauteng health department. "However, despite all efforts, the patient refused any further hospital admission and left for home."

Health authorities tracked her down Wednesday and persuaded her to return to hospital, Zungu said. She has been isolated and a report on the people she had contact with was expected later Thursday.

Zungu said the department was meeting with health officials to advise them on how to deal with the new strain.

"Hospitals and health officials are on alert. We have to ensure it doesn't spread," she said.

Earlier this week the national health department said it had found a supplier of one of two drugs needed to fight the strain.

Africa is the only continent where TB rates are increasing and the new strain has raised alarm about an untreatable TB outbreak in a country where the lung disease is the largest killer of people with AIDS.

Drug resistance is a common problem in TB treatment, but the new strain appears particularly virulent.

TB has been on the rise because AIDS has lowered so many South Africans' ability to fight it and other infections. The government estimates more than 5.5 million of the 44 million South Africans are HIV-positive, second only to India.

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