![Multi-Drug Resistant Typhoid Now an `Invisible Epidemic` in the African Continent Multi-Drug Resistant Typhoid Now an `Invisible Epidemic` in the African Continent](https://images.medindia.net/health-images/1200_1000/ebola2.jpg)
H58 is "displacing" antibiotic-sensitive versions of the germ, the study warned. The now-dominant lineage "has emerged and spread throughout Asia and Africa over the last 30 years.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 21 million people are infected with typhoid every year, and an estimated 216,000 to 600,000 die.
The disease is caused mainly by Salmonella typhi bacteria in food or water contaminated with the faeces or urine of infected people.
Symptoms can include fever, headaches, constipation or diarrhoea, rose-coloured spots on the chest, and an enlarged spleen or liver. Symptoms can be mild or severe, but some people can carry the germ yet not fall sick.
In many developing countries, the disease is controlled through drugs, and lax use of them is helping the resistance problem.
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The problem of MDR typhoid dates back to the 1970s. It happens when the bacterium acquires new genes making it resistant to prevailing drugs.
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This time is different, said senior researcher Kathryn Holt from the University of Melbourne in Australia.
"In H58, these genes are becoming a stable part of the genome, which means multiple antibiotic-resistant typhoid is here to stay," said Holt.
The scientists called for beefing up surveillance of H58, tightening use of antibiotics, expanding vaccination programmes and improving water and sanitation in poor countries.
"Bacteria do not obey international borders, and any efforts to contain the spread of antimicrobial resistance must be globally coordinated," said Stephen Baker at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, an Oxford University research unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Source-Medindia