The Future of Tuberculosis | RxWiki

(RxWiki News) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expecting the number of tuberculosis (TB) cases to increase in certain countries.

That’s according to a new CDC study. The study suggests that drug-resistant TB will increase in certain countries over the next 20 years unless major changes are made.

The CDC’s findings focused on TB cases for four high-burden countries: India, South Africa, Russia and the Philippines. By 2040, cases of TB will increase in these nations, according to the CDC.

This study also found that person-to-person transmission of drug-resistant TB will play a larger role in the spread of TB over the next 20 years. That suggests that TB strains developing resistance to anti-TB drugs may not be the main reason for the increase in drug-resistant TB, the study authors said.

Each year, there are an estimated 10.4 million new TB cases and 1.8 million resulting deaths around the world, according to the CDC. Around 40 percent of all drug-resistant TB cases are thought to occur in India, the Philippines, South Africa and Russia. That 40 percent translated to more than 23,000 cases of drug-resistant TB in 2015.

TB, a bacterial disease, can be treated. However, when patients don’t complete the full course of treatment, bacteria can then develop drug resistance. In some cases, the bacteria that cause the TB infection have developed resistance to the medications used to treat TB. 

Speak with your health care provider about ways to keep you and your family healthy. 

This study was recently published in the journal The Lancet. 

The US Agency for International Development and the CDC’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination funded this research. Information on potential conflicts of interest was not available at the time of publication.