Drug-resistant typhoid is the final warning sign

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/sep/24/drug-resistant-typhoid-disease-pakistan-antibiotics-superbugs-children

‘Drug-resistant typhoid is the final warning sign’: disease spreads in Pakistan as antibiotics fail

As world leaders discuss the battle against superbugs in New York, Pakistan’s children are suffering on the frontline

Misbah Khan
Tue 24 Sep 2024 00.00 EDT

From his sickbed, eight-year-old Ukasha could see his siblings play with a ball in the courtyard. His head hurt and his body felt too heavy to move. Ukasha had typhoid fever – an illness he should have recovered from in days. It had been a month.

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But the antibiotics used to cure typhoid are now failing. The bacteria, Salmonella typhi, have developed resistance to the antibiotics meant to kill them. It’s a pattern repeated across the world; the problem of resistant infections is global and borderless.

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Of the roughly 9 million people who get sick from typhoid each year globally, the vast majority are infected by a drug-resistant strain. Pakistan has the worst rates in south Asia: more than 15,000 cases of XDR-typhoid have been officially reported in the country – and some outbreaks, like the one in Ukasha’s village, go unrecorded.

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Superbugs are not confined within borders. Cases have been identified in 16 other countries, including in India, China, Qatar, the UK and US. The US Centers for Disease Control has warned all travellers to Pakistan to take precautions against the superbug.

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“XDR-typhoid is the final warning sign. After this we will enter a stage where the superbug won’t respond to any drugs at all. That means we will go back to when typhoid was a more deadly disease. And that really worries us,” Khan says. In Pakistan, after their treatment, Ukasha and AbuZar both felt well enough to return to school. Within a few days, both had fevers again.

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