Woman With 'Rare' Tuberculosis Being Treated at NIH; What is XDR-TB & How it Spreads

A female patient with a very rare form of tuberculosis is currently receiving treatment at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, D.C.

NBC News reported that state officials are now tracking hundreds of people who may have been in contact with the woman. The patient allegedly traveled to at least three states before receiving treatment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that the patient had moved from India to the United States and also spent some time in Missouri and Tennessee. She sought treatment for TB seven weeks after her arrival in the United States.

The NIH stated that she was transferred to the NIH from a suburban hospital in Chicago using special air and ground ambulances. She is reportedly in an isolation room in the NIH Clinical Center specifically made for managing patients with respiratory illnesses, including the rare type which she has - XDR-TB. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said that it has treated other XDR-TB patients using the same protocol in the past. The patient will remain anonymous and may undergo treatment for several months or years.

Ordinary TB is not easily spread by casual contact, but XDR-TB is extensively resistant to drugs so health officials are doing their best to track down all persons that the patient was in contact with to determine the people who may potentially be at risk. Ordinary tuberculosis can be treated by weeks of antibiotics, while the XDR form is resistant to almost all known TB drugs. The NIH isolation room generally controls air flow to keep germs from moving to the rest of the hospital and the outside environment.

CDC explained that TB bacteria are placed into the air when an infected person, who has TB disease of the throat or lungs sneezes, coughs, sings or shouts. The bacteria can enter the air for many hours, depending on environmental factors. People who breathe the air with the bacteria can also acquire the disease. Individuals with lowered immune systems, like HIV patients, are most at risk.

Washington Post reported that XDR-TB is rare, with only 63 reported cases in the United States from 1993 to 2011. There were over 312,000 cases of ordinary TB in the same period, based on CDC data. TB is very common in developing countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. The World Health Organization reported 9 million cases in 2013, with 1.5 million resulting deaths.