Courtesy of the vault dweller.
Seems like the extremely-drug resistant TB has hopped out of Africa and was well on its way to Australia via Papua New Guinea.
Australia’s first victim of a killer strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis has died, amid warnings of a looming health epidemic on Queensland’s doorstep. Medical experts are seriously concerned about the handling of the TB epidemic in Papua New Guinea after Catherina Abraham died last Thursday of an incurable form of the illness, known as XDR-TB (extensively drug resistant TB) in Cairns Base Hospital.
[...]Sure, Africa or even North America seem far away (even when they're not due to the wonders of modern travel), but Australia is a little too close for comfort.
But respiratory physician Steve Vincent, who treated Ms Abraham, warned that there was a further threat of Totally Drug Resistant or TDR-TB “just around the corner. Her death is not unexpected given the fallout of this killer, incurable disease,” Dr Vincent said. “Despite all the first-world medical treatment, it shows how difficult it is to control. A Papua New Guinean man crosses the waters of the Torres Strait. “It exemplifies the fact with such a high mortality rate, PNG is going to have an extremely difficult time in handling this epidemic.” He said doctors may soon face the ethical dilemma, where it might be “more humane not to treat them and let them die,” as the disease was untreatable.
Keep healthy, folks. Don't drink the corn syrup.
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