Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) are spreading at an alarming rate in Europe and will kill thousands unless health authorities halt the pandemic, the World Health Organisation(WHO) said on Wednesday.
Launching a new regional plan to find, diagnose and treat cases of the airborne infectious disease more effectively, the WHO's European director warned that complacency had allowed a resurgence of TB and failure to tackle it now would mean huge human and economic costs in the future.
"TB is an old disease that never went away, and now it is evolving with a vengeance," said Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO's Regional Director for Europe.
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#1
This is pretty serious stuff. Even with traditional TB, the mortality rate is 7%. With the multidrug variety (MDR-TB) it is 50%, and the extremely drug resistant variety (XDR-TB) is pretty much "nice knowing you--everything you have touched will be incinerated, and your remains will be buried in quicklime."
The social impact of a TB epidemic is terrifying, because it may kill you quick, or screw up just about any organ in your body, or put you in a wheelchair, or it might make you hyper-creative or hyper-sexual, or you may become pale and gaunt and look like a concentration camp victim.
The emotional morbidity we think of as the "Gothic" look is based on TB. People obsessed with death and dying. Lots of suicide. Mourning black as decor. It psychologically messed up an entire generation.
#2
Bacterial, so don't touch your face and frequent hand washing. Active and latent. Latent you carry it but your not contagious. I didn't realize you can have it for two weeks then big trouble with active. Test early then test again later to make sure. Forget the "Gothic" look but some of the benefits look interesting. I can believe the "Lots of suicide" part. People don't want to suffer and don't want to be financial drain on the family.
#3
The TB culture was something else. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it killed close to a billion people. Yet it had been around as a disease since ancient Egypt and Greece.
Because it affected people differently, it was thought to be several conditions. Scrofula, glandular swellings in the neck, consumption (TB of the lungs), lupus vulgaris (TB of the skin), and PottÂ’s disease (TB of the bones).
The deaths of Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme and Satine in Moulin Rouge, as well as countless other characters found in novels, who would just vanish, the author assuming the readers would know they had died of TB.
With a mortality rate of around 80%, "heroic anything" was tried. In one instance it was found that intentionally collapsing a lung, and letting it remain collapsed for a period of time, the other lung doing the work. It was assumed that given a "rest" allowed the collapsed lung to heal. Weirdly enough, they were right.
#7
Uncontrolled imigration contributed hugely to its' resurfacing in the UK, as well as political decisions, hell, we had an illegal with HIV, TB and probs MRSA as well, masks on, chlorine solutions all round.
#9
It's primarily a social problem (spreading in addict and homeless populations), made worse by the disincentives to drug companies to develop new antibiotics.
Another factor is how virulent the new strains are.
It used to be that the only way to get TB was by living with someone who had TB, but these new strains are spreading thru casual contact.
WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signed an agreement to base anti-missile interceptors in Romania under a NATO missile defense plan that has angered Russia.
Seems like the only good parts of the Obama foreign policy are the ones continued from the Bush foreign policy...
Clinton signed the agreement with Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi and said the United States expected to deploy the interceptor missiles at a Romanian air force base in approximately four years.
"The agreement we have just signed will position Romania as a central player in NATO's evolving missile defense capability," Clinton said, noting that the agreement must still be ratified by the U.S. Senate. "With this missile agreement we are jointly building a safer, more secure future for us all."
The Romania deal is part of a larger NATO missile defense plan for Europe that has caused friction with Moscow, which wants a bigger role.
At a NATO summit last November, the allies agreed to develop a new missile defense shield linking systems in the United States and Europe to protect member states against long-range attacks from states such as Iran. The plans involve the stationing of ship-based interceptors in the Mediterranean beginning this year, followed by land-based interceptors in Romania from 2015 and in Poland from 2018.
Russia has agreed to cooperate on the initiative but disagrees over its implementation, saying it should be a single integrated shield rather than two separate defense systems.
And it wants control over the big red button...
The U.S.-Romania deal calls for the United States to construct, maintain and operate a facility at the Deveselu Air Base near Caracal in southern Romania for the land-based SM-3 ballistic missile defense system. The facility is expected to house between 150 and 200 U.S. military personnel as well as government and civilian contractors.
A State Department factsheet underscored that the SM-3 interceptors are for defensive purposes only and carry no explosive warheads, operating instead by colliding with and destroying incoming missiles.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh and Vladimir, how about the nuke reactors in Iran?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signed an agreement to base anti-missile interceptors in Romania under a NATO missile defense plan that has angered Russia.
