Boston University researcher Max O’€™Donnell was this week awarded the International AIDS Society/Agence Nationale de Recherces sur le SIDA award for his abstract ‘€œHigh incidence of multidrug resistant and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis among South African health care workers’€.

Preliminary results of the research O’€™Donnell is conducting at King George TB Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal has found that healthcare workers employed in this endemic area were substantially more likely to have either MDR or XDR TB than non-healthcare workers.

‘€œThe higher incidence rate among the healthcare workers is explained by occupational exposure and not other risk factors,’€ said O’€™Donnell. ‘€œWe are comfortable that they are being infected due to patient exposure.’€

Even though slightly more healthcare workers were found to have died (21% compared to 16% in the general population) it was more likely that their deaths were better recorded as they were being followed more closely due to the nature of their occupation (working in a healthcare setting).

O’€™Donnell revealed that their latest data, which has not yet been published, will show that they recorded 288 cases of MDR TB among healthcare workers and 23 cases of XDR TB between 2003 and 2008.

‘€œIt is critical to reduce occupational exposure among South African healthcare workers in order to control nosocomial spread of drug resistant TB,’€ said O’€™Donnell.

South Africa has the highest number of people co-infected with TB and HIV and one of the highest rates of drug resistant TB in the world. Lack of infection control has been identified as one of the major weak points in South Africa’€™s TB control programme.