The in vitro activity of linezolid was evaluated against 84 clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, including multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains, isolated from the center for tuberculosis research and treatment of the Chinese army. Linezolid showed excellent activity, with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 0.125-0.5 μg/mL against all te...

1. Migliori GB, Loddenkemper R, Blasi F, Raviglione MC. 125 years after Robert Koch’s discovery of the tubercle bacillus: the new XDR-TB threat. Is “science” enough to tackle the epidemic? Eur Respir J. 2007;29:423–7. 2. Laszlo A, Rahman M, Espinal M, Raviglione M; WHO/IUATLD Network of Supranational Reference Laboratories. Quality assurance programme for drug susceptibility testing of Mycobact...

The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) substantially challenges TB control, especially in the European Region of the World Health Organization, where the highest prevalence of MDR/XDR cases is reported. The current management of patients with MDR/XDR-TB is extremely complex for medical, social and public health systems. The treatment wi...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is a difficult-to-treat form of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). High rates of XDR-TB have been reported from India. We sought to ascertain the prevalence of XDR-TB among patients with MDR-TB treated at a tertiary care centre in New Delhi, India. METHODS Case records of patients treated for MDR-TB at the All Ind...

I has the largest TB epidemic in the world with almost 1000 TB related deaths everyday or 2 deaths every 3 minutes. Drug resistance is assuming increasing proportions with the prevalence of multi drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (defined as TB resistant to at least both isoniazid (H) and rifampicin (R)) approaching 1.5-2.7% in new and 13-17% in previously treated cases.1 The exact burden of ex...

BACKGROUND Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) caused by drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii is associated with high mortality in critically ill patients. We identified the prognostic factors of 30-day mortality in patients with VAP caused by drug-resistant A. baumannii and compared survival outcomes among multidrug-resistant (MDR), extensively drug-resistant (XDR) and pandrug-resistant (P...

Multi-drug and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR and XDR-TB) are problems that threaten public health worldwide. Only some genetic markers associated with drug-resistant TB are known. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is a promising tool for distinguishing between re-infection and persistent infection in isolates taken at different times from a single patient, but has not yet been applie...

This paper describes the results of second-line drug (SLD) susceptibility tests among multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) cases reported in 20 European countries aiming to identify extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) cases. A project on molecular surveillance of MDR TB cases was conducted by EuroTB and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) from 2...