XDR-TB ex-patients challenge court order

Seen are the presence of bilateral pulmonary infiltrate (white marks) and caving formation (black)

Three Cape Town patients suffering from Extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) who absconded from the Brooklyn Chest hospital earlier this year are challenging an interim court order in the Cape High Court this morning.

XDR-TB is defined as MDR-TB that is also resistant to three or more of the six classes of second-line drugs.

Six patients have absconded, but one has since died. The order which was obtained by the Department of Health, says the patients should stay in hospital for at least six months. They are represented by the Legal Aid Board's Justice Centre.

Highly infectious disease
Some Constitutional experts say the freedom of someone diagnosed with a highly infectious disease, comes second to the safety of the general public.

In October this year, South African scientists announced that they had for the first time been able to fully decode the genetic blueprint to drug resistant tuberculosis - and the feat took them slightly more than a week.

Previously, the attempt to sequence the entire genome of one strain of Extensively Drug Resistant Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (XDR-TB) could have been expected to take at least a year using older technology.- SABC