MedIndia, India
Dec 5 2007
Armenia’s Increasing XDR-TB is Due to Ineffective Treatment Methods,
Claims Expert
Drug-resistant tuberculosis is spreading in Armenia in part because
of incorrect and ineffective treatment methods, Tatevik Kostanyan,
director of the Anti-Tuberculosis National Program head office in the
country, said recently, Arminfo reports. There were 50.2 TB cases per
100,000 people recorded last year, compared with 21.6 cases per
100,000 people in 1995, Kostanyan said.
According to Kostanyan, many Armenian doctors are contributing to the
spread of drug-resistant TB by declining to adopt World Health
Organization-recommended DOTS methods. She said that these doctors
continue to use outdated Soviet methods of TB treatment even after
undergoing relevant DOTS training. "Sometimes, even the longest
treatment course proves ineffective for the drug-resistant patients,"
Kostanyan said. Doctors who refuse to use DOTS cannot be punished
because there is no relevant legislation requiring them to use the
new methods, Arminfo reports.
According to Kostanyan, a total of 6,455 TB cases have been reported
in the country. She said the largest number of patients with TB have
been older than age 25 from financially stable families. According to
Arminfo, it costs about $10,000 to $15,000 to treat a person who has
drug-resistant TB, but only $200 per person is allocated in the
budget for treatment.
Source-Kaiser Family Foundation
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