Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are spreading unchecked in the Asia-Pacific because countries lack quality laboratory facilities to detect the respiratory infection, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Monday. ( dpa )
Less than 1 per cent of cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) are detected and treated in the region because many countries lack basic laboratory capacity to monitor and manage cases, WHO said as it marked World Stop TB Day.
In 2006, 600 of an estimated 150,000 cases were detected by laboratories in East Asia and the Pacific, the UN agency said.
"This is a serious situation," said Shigeru Omi, director of WHO's Western Pacific Region, which is headquartered in Manila. "Outbreaks of multidrug-resistant TB are going unnoticed constantly. We are worried this silent epidemic could set us back years."
"We could lose the gains made in recent years," he added.
Undetected and untreated, a TB patient could infect 10 to 15 people a year, simply by coughing or sneezing. Infections could also spread on long-haul flights, WHO said.
It warned that the spread of drug-resistant TB would be a "nightmare" since it takes up to two years to treat the disease with medicines that have serious side effects and cost 100 times more than the regular regimen of drugs.
"Without adequate laboratory support, we don't know what drugs still work," Omi said. "We don't even know the true scale of the problem."
Most developing countries rely almost exclusively on the 125-year-old microscopy method to confirm infectious TB, but drug resistance must be detected with "culture methods," whose costs and complexities hamper their widespread use, the UN agency said.
Although culture methods are used routinely in developed countries, there are only a few laboratories in some countries in East Asia and the Pacific that are able to conduct such tests.
Cambodia and the Philippines, for example, each have only three laboratories able to diagnose multidrug-resistant TB by culture methods, even though TB is a leading cause of death in both countries.
Pieter Van Maaren, WHO regional adviser for its Stop TB and Leprosy Elimination programme, said countries need to do more than just upgrade laboratories.
He noted that laboratories in the Asia-Pacific have long been neglected, suffering from a shortage of funds, trained personnel and quality-assurance systems.