The deadly drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis has claimed its first life in the Western Cape and five new sufferers have been diagnosed.
This brings to eight the number of people identified with “extremely drug-resistant” TB - XDR-TB - in the province so far.
Dr Keith Cloete, director of TB for the province, said a 23-year-old Cape Town woman had died in the Brooklyn Chest Hospital on February 5, but XDR-TB had only been diagnosed after death.
Last year this strain killed more than 50 people in KwaZulu-Natal and more than 300 cases have been confirmed countrywide.
Four of the five new local cases have been admitted to Brooklyn Chest Hospital, where they are being treated in isolation along with the first two cases, an 11-month-old baby from Khayelitsha and a 43-year-old woman from the Eastern Cape, who fell ill while visiting Cape Town over Christmas… Cape Argus
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