Drug-Resistant TB

What is drug-resistant TB?

Drug-resistant TB does not respond to one or more of the antibiotics commonly used to treat TB disease. When a person with TB disease does not take his/her TB drugs properly, the TB bacteria may become resistant to these antibiotics. The person usually gets sick again, and may spread the drug-resistant TB bacteria to others.

Drug-resistant TB is more common in people who:

• have been infected by someone with drug-resistant TB disease
• do not take their treatment for TB disease regularly
• do not take all their antibiotics for TB disease
• develop TB disease again, after past treatment for TB disease
• were born in areas where drug-resistant TB is common.

Sometimes TB bacteria become resistant to more than one drug. TB that is resistant to the two most common antibiotics used to fight TB disease is called multidrug-resistant TB or MDR-TB. This is a very serious problem and must be treated by a doctor who specializes in TB. A person with MDR-TB disease need special antibiotics, must take drugs for longer and the drugs usually have more side effects. Sometimes surgery is the only way to cure MDR-TB disease.

A person infected with drug-resistant TB is not helped by the usual treatment of TB infection. Special drugs may be prescribed, but there is no guarantee that progression to TB disease will not occur.

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