A rare new ”super” strain of tuberculosis (TB) that is costly and time-consuming to treat has been identified in South Africa’s Western Cape province, a leading scientist said on Monday.
Tommie Victor, a professor of medical biotechnology at the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town, said a team of scientists and health workers has identified the strain after conducting research in 72 clinics in the Western Cape over the past three years.
”We identified various strains of TB that are new to South Africa. One of them, DRF150, has never been identified anywhere in the world before,” he said.
Victor said the team, which has published its findings in the European Journal of Tubercle and Lung Disease, found that DRF150 is resistant to almost all antibiotics used to treat tuberculosis.
”Usually five drugs are used to combat TB. The DRF150 strain is resistant to four of these,” he said.
Victor said the new strain has its epicentre in the town of George, about 400km east of Cape Town, where about 60 cases have been identified.
About 20 other cases have been identified in other parts of the Western Cape, but isolates of the new strain have also been found in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces and in Nairobi, Kenya.
Last year 224 420 cases of tuberculosis were reported in South Africa.
”It is difficult to measure how dangerous this new strain is, but it is certainly treatable, so there is nothing at all to worry about,” Victor said.
A spokesperson for the Western Cape health department said the new strain is worrying because of the costs involved.
Treatment of patients with a multi-drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis costs between R25 000 and R30 000 because it requires long hospital stays.
Ordinary TB costs about R200 to treat, with patients having to take antibiotics over six months.
”There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel, because only a few people who come into contact with the new strain catch it,” the health department spokesperson said.
According to the United Nations World Health Organisation’s 2003 report on the global spread of tuberculosis, South Africa has the seventh-highest number of cases of the disease, after India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Tuberculosis is also the number-one killer among the five million adult South Africans suffering from HIV and Aids. — Sapa-AFP