XDR tuberculosis--implications for global public health.

Isoniazid resistance without a loss of fitness in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The emergence of multi- and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB and XDR-TB, respectively) has intensified the critical public health implications of this global disease. The fitness of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb.) strains exhibiting MDR and XDR phenotypes is of fundamental importance in predicting whether the MDR-/XDR-TB epidemic will be sustained across the human population. ...

Control of Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB): A Root Cause Analysis.

The threat of global infectious agents has the potential to cripple national and global economies, as the outbreaks of SARS, Avian Flu, H1N1, and XDR-TB have demonstrated. This article offers a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of one public health case study - the Speaker case of XDR-TB - pinpointing the underlying causal relationships associated with this global health incident and proposing recommen...

The Involuntary Detention and Isolation of Patients Infected with Extreme Resistant Tuberculosis (xdr-tb): Implications for Public Health, Human Rights and Informed Consent

Emergence of potential superbug mycobacterium tuberculosis, lessons from new delhi mutant-1 bacterial strains.

Recent reports have shown that certain bacterial strains attain the New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) enzyme and become resistant to a broad range of antibiotics. Similarly, more dangerous "superbugs" of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensive drug resistant (XDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains are gradually emerging through rapid genetic mutation caused by prescription non-compli...

Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis: an isolation order, public health powers, and a global crisis.

CENTURIES AFTER THE FORMAL CREATION OF QUARantine, the practice continues to evoke concern when implemented to halt the spread of dangerous microbes. Witness the controversy generated by US citizen Andrew Speaker, whom the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) detained and isolated because he was diagnosed with pulmonary disease caused by extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (X...