Drug-Resistant TB Partially Caused by Counterfeit Drugs

The rise of a strain of tuberculosis that is resistant to medications is on the rise in East Africa and is part of the result of the unknowing use of counterfeit drugs.

There are two types of TB that have become resistant to medicine, multi-drug resistant TB and extremely resistant TB, and the prevalence of both of these illnesses is not only increasing in Africa but in the rest of the world as well, according to the Daily Nation.

Extremely resistant TB is the more lethal of the two types and can be caused by poor treatment of the disease and mis-diagnoses, but it is also caused by the accidental use of counterfeit drugs, which may allow the disease to transform and become resistant to treatment, reports the news source.

It appears that cases of these resistant iterations of the illness are increasing.

“Drug resistant tuberculosis cases are spreading. We have already seen a rise in Kenya and we believe the case is the same in other parts of East Africa,” said Dr. Joseph Sitienei, the head of the National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Programme in Kenya.