The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a new drug-resistant Tuberculosis (TB) spreading in several countries and continents including the United States , Eastern Europe , and Africa that could greatly compromise AIDS treatment programs. The new strain called XDR-TB has already killed several people in these nations is virtually untreatable using currently known drugs.

The WHO estimates 9 million cases of TB in the world and 2% of these infections or 180,000 could be infected with the XDR-TB. WHO TB team head Paul Nunn says that the world needs to be “worried” about what “might happen for a decade—the possibility of virtually untreatable TB.” Nunn’s worries seem justified because nearly a third of nearly those who died in the US , where medical facilities and availability of medication is not an issue, were due to XDR-TB. The US Center for Disease Control says that the US had a total of 64 cases of TB of which 21 had XDR-TB and all of them died.

Nunn also said that while a significant numbers of cases have been confirmed in Latvia and Russia , this new strain is unrecognized in many parts of the world. With the increase in global business and related travel, WHO is worried that because this strain could spread rapidly in confined spaces (such as an aircraft), it would infect travelers and seriously impact the global economy.

Already, multi-drug resistant TB strains (those that are resistant to the two basic, first-line drugs used to treat the disease) have spread everywhere, including to the UK and becoming increasingly common and is difficult and expensive to treat where the patient has be treated with four out of the six existing second-line drugs.

In the XDR-TB case, three out of available six second-line drugs are ineffective and there is no third-line of defense.