CAPE TOWN, Nov 17 (AFP) - A rare new "super" strain of tuberculosis that is costly and time-consuming to treat has been identified in South Africa's Western Cape province, a leading scientist said Monday.
Tommie Victor, a professor of medical biotechnology at the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town, said a team of scientists and health workers had identified the strain after conducting research in 72 clinics in the Western Cape over the past three years.
"We identified various strains of TB that are new to South Africa, one of them the DRF150, has never been identified anywhere in the world before," he said.
Victor said the team, which had published its findings in the European Journal of Tubercle and Lung Disease, found that DRF150 was resistant to almost all antibiotics, used to treat tuberculosis.
"Usually five drugs are used to combat TB. The DRF150 strain is resistant to four of these," he said.
Victor said the new strain had its epicentre in the town of George, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of Cape Town, where about 60 cases had been identified.
About 20 other cases have been identified in other parts of the Western Cape, but isolates of the new strain have also been found in the South Africa's Northern Province, the Mpumalanga province and in Nairobi, Kenya.
Last year 224,420 cases of tuberculosis were reported in South Africa.
"It is difficult to measure how dangerous this new strain is, but it is certainly treatable, so there is nothing at all to worry about," Victor said.
A spokesman for the Western Cape health department said the new strain was worrying because of the costs involved.
Treatment of patients with a multi-drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis costs between 25,000 and 30,000 rand (3,700-3,800 dollars) because it requires long hospital stays.
Ordinary TB costs about 200 rand to treat, with patients having to take antibiotics over six months.
"There is however, light at the end of the tunnel, because only a few people who come into contact with the new strain catch it," the Western Cape health department spokesman said.
According to the UN World Health Organisation's 2003 report on the global spread of tuberculosis, South Africa has the seventh-highest number of cases of the disease, after India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Tuberculosis is also the number one killer among the five million adult South Africans suffering from HIV and AIDS.
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