Revelation 6:7,8 NCV When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill people by war, by starvation, by disease, and by the wild animals of the earth.
The Centers for Disease Control have confirmed the first cases of a completely drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis in South Africa. The CDC report is calling the infection “virtually untreatable.”
Tuberculosis is the second most fatal infectious disease worldwide after HIV.
Ten different drugs are currently available to fight tuberculosis although some involve a six-month course of treatment. The more drug-resistant strains require long term hospitalization and drugs that have side effects that can last years.
The outbreak of the drug-resistant strains have lowered the cure rate in South Africa 20% in just two years. Currently, South Africans have a 50/50 chance of surviving the disease.
The CDC report focused on Dr. Uvistra Naidoo who contracted a nearly completely resistant form of the disease. His treatment lasted over three years and resulted in side effects including bleeding from the eyes and severe depression. He also contracted “Stevens-Johnson Syndrome” which caused the layers of his skin to separate because of TB weakening his immune system.
“It’s gone relatively unrecognized,” Johns Hopkins TB researcher William Bishai says. “This is evidence that it’s emerged and is spreading—we’re playing with fire here.”
