Experts a warning a new pandemic could be overtaking Covid as a threat to the UK as they work to tackle the spread of the disease in Africa. The biggest ever clinical trial of its kinds has been set up to tackle the spread of tuberculosis in Africa.
Professor Robert Wilkinson is trying to find a one-shot cure with research institutions in the US, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Madagascar and the Ivory Coast. Currently medication takes at least six months.
The NHS stopped offering the BCG vaccine against TB to all children in 2005, instead targeting only children who may travel to badly-affected countries.
Prof Wilkinson, of London’s Francis Crick Institute said: “It’s inevitable TB will be the most deadly infectious disease in the world again. The proportion of resistant TB is gradually increasing everywhere and that is a problem in Europe too.
“We should ensure that all legal and illegal arrivals to the UK have access to health care and, if necessary, screening and early treatment. Even if they are detained for illegal arrival, they have a right to care and it is advantageous for the UK to provide that.”
TB cases imported into England have started to increase after a decade-long decline. Almost a third of patients who catch the growing mutant form die, reports The Mirror.
In South Africa, Veliswa Dayeni, suffered TB meningitis, a severe form which attacks the brain. The mum of two, 48, survived but was left partially blind.
She said: “It started with really bad headaches. Then for weeks I was completely paralysed. I couldn’t wash myself and had to have an adult diaper. This disease is so dangerous.”
Kenny Mgogoshe, 37, had terrible chest pain before he was diagnosed. It came after a friend had been killed by TB. “We have been forgotten,” the father of two said. “The funding for treatment needs to go to poor communities in informal settlements because this is where you will find TB.
“There’s no running water. The waste is left around and it even gets in the air you breathe. It’s so crowded and there’s no proper sanitation. My friend was aged 28 and he succumbed.”
The World Health Organisation put annual TB deaths at 1.6 million during 2021, with 2022 figures expected to be higher.
Prof Wilkinson said: “Most people, if you told them TB deaths were of a similar order of magnitude as Covid, they would not believe you. There aren’t enough resources compared to Covid. It’s a drop in the ocean.”
Latest data shows a TB rate of 7.8 cases per 100,000 in England in 2021. This compared to 4.7 in Germany and 2.4 in the US.
Dr Meera Chand, of the UK Health Security Agency, said: “We are working with the NHS to strengthen prevention, detection and treatment.”
TB has been around for 9,000 years and from 1600 to 1800 in Europe caused 25% of all deaths. It is still killing one person every 20 seconds globally.
Despite this we still have no vaccine that works in adults. The BCG childhood jab is the most widely used vaccine in the world but immunity does not last to the teenage years and no booster has yet been developed.
TB is developing greater resistance to the handful of antibiotics able to treat it because many patients in impoverished communities are unable to continue with the drugs for the minimum six months required to clear disease.
This means it comes back stronger and treating these superstrains can take two years. Almost a third of such patients do not survive.
TB most often affects the lungs and is caused by a type of bacteria. It spreads through the air when infected people cough, sneeze or spit.
The problem with quickly finding and treating patients who catch TB is that the symptoms can be more wide ranging.
They can include a prolonged cough sometimes with blood, chest pain, weakness, fatigue, weight loss, fever and night sweats.
In rare but severe cases where the infection goes to the brain it can cause severe headaches, irritability, and whole body pain.
Children are at higher risk from TB as are smokers and people with weakened immune systems and diabetes.
