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Fears of lethal TB continue<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=23 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=svarticletext>
By Geoff Bough
A Cape Town woman's death in North West from tuberculosis (TB) days after falling ill has led to questions about the prevalence of the disease's extreme drug-resistant strain in South Africa.
Ken Nelson, 53, says his blind partner of six years, Isobella Petronella Nel, fell ill and died while they were visiting his sister in Potchefstroom in September. Nel was 41.
Nelson has since tried to file a complaint with police against the minister of health for what he claims is dereliction of duty. He says she has failed to inform South Africans about the multiple and extreme drug-resistant strains of TB. His affidavit has been sent to Klerksdorp police.
<TABLE cellSpacing=6 cellPadding=0 width=130 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=pullquote>'70 South Africans are known to have died of the extreme version'</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--pull quote end -->Nel fell ill on September 9 in Potchefstroom, where she remained in a clinic until her transfer on September 11 to the Life Anncron Clinic in Klerksdorp.
Although the clinic would not comment on its treatment of Nel, Nelson showed the Cape Times her medical report.
At the clinic, Nel initially responded to medication and was taken off a ventilator, but quickly deteriorated. Tests had confirmed she had severe TB. According to the report, Nel died of severe acute pulmonary TB, with adult respiratory failure and multiple organ failure.
The report said no samples were taken after her death on September 17 to determine which strain of TB she'd had. The multiple and extreme drug-resistant strains can three to six weeks to determine.
North West police spokesperson Pieter du Plessis said a police autopsy had not been held because TB was considered a natural cause of death.
Tony Moll, of the Church of Scotland Hospital in Tugela Ferry, central KwaZulu-Natal, and the first doctor to discover the extreme drug-resistant strain, said although TB was a notifiable disease, it was not required of doctors to specify which strain was involved.
He said most hospitals had begun differentiating between the regular and multiple drug-resistant strains, but many were not doing this with the extreme version.
"The thinking of microbiologists and epidemiologists is that there's a lot more multiple and extreme drug-resistant TB than we've been able to record."
Moll said only one laboratory KwaZulu-Natal Province could determine the extreme strain and more and more doctors were sending it samples.
"As people look for it more, they're finding more," he said.
Paul van Helden, of the department of biomedical sciences at the Stellenbosch University Medical School, and Moll think the extreme version is less virulent than common TB, but tests are needed to confirm this.
More than 70 South Africans are known to have died of the extreme version. In Cape Town, health services say there have been three such deaths and they are investigating nine other cases.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20061108114038596C854472
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
By Geoff Bough
A Cape Town woman's death in North West from tuberculosis (TB) days after falling ill has led to questions about the prevalence of the disease's extreme drug-resistant strain in South Africa.
Ken Nelson, 53, says his blind partner of six years, Isobella Petronella Nel, fell ill and died while they were visiting his sister in Potchefstroom in September. Nel was 41.
Nelson has since tried to file a complaint with police against the minister of health for what he claims is dereliction of duty. He says she has failed to inform South Africans about the multiple and extreme drug-resistant strains of TB. His affidavit has been sent to Klerksdorp police.
<TABLE cellSpacing=6 cellPadding=0 width=130 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=pullquote>'70 South Africans are known to have died of the extreme version'</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--pull quote end -->Nel fell ill on September 9 in Potchefstroom, where she remained in a clinic until her transfer on September 11 to the Life Anncron Clinic in Klerksdorp.
Although the clinic would not comment on its treatment of Nel, Nelson showed the Cape Times her medical report.
At the clinic, Nel initially responded to medication and was taken off a ventilator, but quickly deteriorated. Tests had confirmed she had severe TB. According to the report, Nel died of severe acute pulmonary TB, with adult respiratory failure and multiple organ failure.
The report said no samples were taken after her death on September 17 to determine which strain of TB she'd had. The multiple and extreme drug-resistant strains can three to six weeks to determine.
North West police spokesperson Pieter du Plessis said a police autopsy had not been held because TB was considered a natural cause of death.
Tony Moll, of the Church of Scotland Hospital in Tugela Ferry, central KwaZulu-Natal, and the first doctor to discover the extreme drug-resistant strain, said although TB was a notifiable disease, it was not required of doctors to specify which strain was involved.
He said most hospitals had begun differentiating between the regular and multiple drug-resistant strains, but many were not doing this with the extreme version.
"The thinking of microbiologists and epidemiologists is that there's a lot more multiple and extreme drug-resistant TB than we've been able to record."
Moll said only one laboratory KwaZulu-Natal Province could determine the extreme strain and more and more doctors were sending it samples.
"As people look for it more, they're finding more," he said.
Paul van Helden, of the department of biomedical sciences at the Stellenbosch University Medical School, and Moll think the extreme version is less virulent than common TB, but tests are needed to confirm this.
More than 70 South Africans are known to have died of the extreme version. In Cape Town, health services say there have been three such deaths and they are investigating nine other cases.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20061108114038596C854472
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>