Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Lithuania – Still a long way ahead

Despite the recent advances in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, treatment of the disease, for the most part, remains the same as it was half a century ago. In recent years only two new anti-tuberculosis drugs have been approved by the European Medicines Agency and Food and Drug Administration. Though...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Greta Musteikienė, Skaidrius Miliauskas, Raimundas Sakalauskas, Astra Vitkauskienė, Marius Žemaitis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2016-01-01
Series:Medicina
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1010660X16000203
Description
Summary:Despite the recent advances in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, treatment of the disease, for the most part, remains the same as it was half a century ago. In recent years only two new anti-tuberculosis drugs have been approved by the European Medicines Agency and Food and Drug Administration. Though the prevalence of this disease is slowly decreasing all over Europe, new challenges appear. One of them is multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). This problem is especially prominent in Lithuania, which is one of the 27 high MDR-TB burden countries in the world and falls behind neighboring countries in terms of the prevalence of the disease. The objective of this paper was to review the situation of tuberculosis and MDR-TB in Lithuania, and current available methods of treatment, control and diagnosis of this disease.
ISSN:1010-660X