ARMENIA: ONE OF THE HIGHEST PER CAPITA RATES OF DRUG-RESISTANT TB

Tert.am
09:46 ~U 24.03.10

Armenia has one of the highest per capita rates of drug-resistant
tuberculosis (DR TB) in the world, and since 2004 Medecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) has been collaborating with the Ministry of Health,
running the only DR TB treatment program in the country, according
to a news update on the MSF website.

DR TB occurs when TB bacilli present in a patient are resistant to
the first line drugs that are most effective in combating the disease.

Patients with regular TB can develop resistance if they do not complete
the full course of drugs, or a person can be directly infected by
drug resistant TB strain from an infected DR TB patient.

Medecins Sans Frontières provides the drugs – which can cost up to
15,000 dollars per patient for a two-year course – supervises the
treatment and gives patients psychological and social assistance.

Through the World Health Organization’s Green Light Committee approved
Medecins Sans Frontières program, the drugs are now accessible at a
reduced cost to the program and available free of cost to the patients.

Armenia has a modern, well-equipped national laboratory for detecting
DR TB, with results from sputum tests available within three weeks.

But still, to be tested in the national laboratory, she had to be
referred by a TB doctor, and in Armenia as elsewhere, it is a new
intervention and the TB program and its staff are in a stage of
developing this expertise with the support of Medecins Sans Frontières.

According to Dr. Stobdan Kalon, the Medecins Sans Frontières head
of mission in Armenia, "Now the extent of the spread of TB is so
generalized that it is very much likely that TB can affect anybody
and now we are starting to see TB in the general population, even
the well-to-do affluent population."