"The report, 'Anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in the world', is based on data collected between 2002 and 2006 on 90 000 TB patients in 81 countries.
It found that extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a virtually untreatable form of the respiratory disease, has been recorded in 45 countries," WHO said on its website.
According to WHO estimates, there are nearly 500,000 new cases of MDR-TB (multidrug-resistant tuberculosis) annually, which is nearly 5% of 9,000,000 new TB cases of all types.
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, "boasts" the highest rate: some 22.3% of all new TB cases were reported as multidrug-resistant.
"Proportions of MDR-TB among new TB cases were 19.4% in Moldova, 16% in Donetsk in Ukraine, 15% in the Tomsk Oblast in the Russian Federation, and 14.8% in Tashkent in Uzbekistan. These rates surpass the highest levels of drug resistance published in the last WHO report in 2004. Surveys in China also suggest that MDR-TB is widespread there," WHO said.
