49 TB patients escape from S. African hospital

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49 TB patients escape from S. African hospital

Patients cut wire fencing and fled isolation unit to spend holidays at

home

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Forty nine highly infectious tuberculosis

patients cut through wire fencing and broke out of a hospital

isolation unit, apparently because they wanted to spend Christmas with

their families.

The mass escape highlights the problems faced by South Africa as it

struggles to cope with an epidemic of virtually incurable TB that

feeds off the AIDS virus and kills most of its victims. South Africa

has an estimated 5.4 million people living with the AIDS virus.

There have been around 400 confirmed cases of the incurable strain

known as XDR-TB, or extremely drug resistant TB. But activists say the

actual number is probably much larger, because testing methods are not

sophisticated enough to detect the new strain and many people die

before they can be diagnosed.

Eastern Cape authorities said Tuesday they were still searching for 29

TB patients who escaped last week from the Pearson Hospital near

the coastal city of Port , the South African Press

Association said. Twenty had turned themselves in following appeals,

and authorities said they hoped more would follow suit.

A spokesman for the department, Siyanda Manana, said the 49 patients —

all with multidrug resistant and extremely drug resistant TB — had

escaped through holes they cut through the hospital's perimeter fences.

Notices to return, issued by the state attorney's office, were

delivered to the patients' homes.

" So far 20 have returned; we are expecting more to come back soon, "

said Manana.

Although forced confinement of patients violates most medical ethics,

authorities say they have no choice but to put the wider public good

above individual rights. Confinement for XDR-TB is at least six months.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22315328/