RIGA - Europe's first anti-tuberculosis center that will combat the spread of a new multi-drug resistant strain of the disease opened on Nov. 22. The official opening of the Latvia-World Health Organization joint venture was followed by a day-long seminar on the state of tuberculosis in the Baltics, Russia and the world.
All three Baltic states have a high rate of tuberculosis, as does much of the former Soviet Union and Central Asia. What's more troubling, however, is that those infected with tuberculosis in the Baltic states and Central Asia are 10 times as likely to carry the drug-resistant strain then the rest of the world, according to a WHO study released earlier this year.
Three of the top 10 global hotspots for the resistant strain are Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Vaira Leimane, director of the new center, admitted there was still much work to be done before Latvia could hope to reach Western levels of TB prevention.
The new center in Riga is expected to research multidrug-resistant strains of tuberculosis as well as provide the training to combat it. After some 400-500 annual cases of the multi-drug resistant strain registered since the early 1990s, the numbers have steadily decreased, reaching only 200 cases last year. Yet WHO officials are worried about the possibility that all kinds of TB infections could resurface in the former Soviet Union.
"It's quite clear to us that the Baltic countries have the opportunity to set an example for the world." said Gudjon Magnusson, director of the WHO regional office's technical support division. "Latvia has already set very good precedents, and with the new center here in Riga there is no question in our minds that this is a very important step in the right direction."
Jack Chow, assistant director general of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria at the WHO, said, "We want to identify the successful strategies that were implemented here in Latvia and be able to train other doctors and public health officials around the world to adapt the success of Latvia to their own countries."
The three diseases that Chow works with are "diseases of poverty," he explained, which affect developing countries far more than wealthy ones. Last year such diseases killed 6 million people across the globe. While TB treatment can cost as little as $10, the amount for treating drug-resistant strains can be prohibitive.
"Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis can costs hundreds, even thousands of dollars to treat, and also takes longer to treat than regular TB. We are working through something called the Green Light Committee to find affordable medicines for the drug resistant strains. With the raise of HIV, more people could become susceptible to drug-resistant strains. We need to bring the costs down," Chow added.
Ten years ago New York City was hit by an outbreak of a drug-resistant strain, and it took nearly $1 billion to bring it under control, Chow said at conference. Without effective drugs to treat the new forms of TB, the disease can prove fatal. In addition, the high rate of AIDS/HIV in Eastern Europe makes those infected particularly susceptible to contracting all forms of TB due to their weakened immune system.
Janis Leimans, director of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, a state agency, said that medical treatment for TB is still free in Latvia.
