A MAN was in hospital fighting a rare form of tuberculosis yesterday as health experts sought to reassure the public that precautions were being taken to prevent it spreading.
The patient – believed to be from Somalia – is being treated for Extremely Drug-Resistant TB (known as XDR-TB) at Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow.
It is the first time this strain of TB has been diagnosed in the UK since the definition of t
he infection was changed in 2006.
People who have been in close contact with the patient are now being screened for XDR-TB, which is resistant to the drugs routinely used to treat TB.
But Dr Oliver Blatchford, a consultant in public health medicine in Glasgow, said that people were no more likely to catch this form of TB than other type of the disease.
"It is no more infectious than ordinary TB but it does require different treatment," he said. "The contacts of this case are being screened in the same way as ordinary TB contacts. They will be monitored closely to ensure any further cases are identified early and treated quickly."
XDR-TB needs to be treated with a combination of antibiotics to ensure the patient is cured and to prevent transmission of the disease to others.
TB, which usually infects the lungs, is spread through prolonged and close contact with an infected person, such as through coughing and sneezing.
Normal TB is usually treated with a six-month course of antibiotics, which must be completed to stop the disease from returning or drug resistance developing.
The Glasgow patient, who is believed to have claimed political asylum in the UK, is reported to have been screened for infectious diseases when he arrived at Heathrow Airport last November. An X-ray revealed scarring on his lungs and he told doctors he had received a six-month course of TB treatment.
But after arriving in Scotland, he was admitted to hospital and was found to have the extremely resistant strain of the disease.
UK immigration officials can ask people arriving from countries with a high prevalence of TB to be tested if they suspect they are ill. But testing of every arrival is not compulsory.
Paul Sommerfeld, from the charity TB Alert, said: "This case of XDR-TB is worrying, but it is not a cause for great panic.
"There have been cases of extremely resistant TB in countries around the world and it is usually a sign that something has gone wrong in health services.
"Someone may have had TB but they have not completed their treatment or the disease has not properly been cleared, so it remains and can come back in a resistant form."
Mr Sommerfeld said the real danger from XDR-TB was to those unlucky enough to be infected. "We have virtually no drugs that are effective against this TB," he said. "The only drugs are available to treat it are going to be extremely expensive and rather toxic."
Last year, 401 cases of TB were reported in Scotland, up from 384 in 2006.
The full article contains 521 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
