2013-04

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Despite the efforts made worldwide to reduce the number of cases of drug-susceptible tuberculosis, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) constitutes an important public health issue. Around 440,000 new cases of MDR-TB are estimated annually, although in 2008 only 7% of these (29,423 cases) were notified. The laboratory tests for diagnosing resistance may be phenotypic (based on culture growth in the presence of drugs) or genotypic (i.e. identification of the presence of mutations that confer resistance). The urgent need for a rapid means of detecting resistance to anti-TB drugs has resulte...

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