Drug-resistant TB spreading through Russian prisons

June 24, 1999
Web posted at: 2:53 p.m. EDT (1853 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Russian medical officials said Thursday that a new strain of tuberculosis is turning a stay in a Russian jail into a death sentence for many people.

More than a million people are being held in Russian jails for a year, the time it typically takes for a trial. One in 10 has tuberculosis.

Russian doctors said partial treatment has allowed a new superstrain of drug-resistant tuberculosis to develop, and one-third of the infected prisoners have contracted that strain.

Health officials also warn that those who are infected could spread the drug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide.

"Sixty-six percent will die. The problem is, before they die they will again contaminate, spread this disease to the other inmates, to the guards, to the medical personnel," said one doctor. "Up to the year 2010, we can expect at least 2 million people here on the streets of Russia can carry this deadly superstrain, uncurable strain nearly."

To treat ordinary tuberculosis costs about $60. To treat a case of drug-resistant TB costs $250,000, money Russia doesn't have.