Somali asylum seeker with super deadly TB

The patient, believed to be an asylum seeker in his 30s from Somalia, East Africa, is the first to be diagnosed in Britain with extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB). His case was picked up in Glasgow in January 2008 but a court order detaining him in hospital for treatment lapsed after his condition stabilized and he travelled south to Leeds, West Yorks. He has been admitted to an isolation room at a hospital in the city where he is being given high-dose drugs by specialist medical teams. The man travelled to Leeds to be near relatives and attended A&E in the city within 24 hours. It remains unclear if his application for asylum, made when he arrived in Britain in 2007, has been successful but the bill for treatment - which would run into tens of thousands of pounds a year - is being picked up by the NHS in Leeds. XDR TB poses a worldwide threat amid major concerns over increasing resistance of tuberculosis to antibiotics which originally proved highly effective against the illness. The World Health Organisation has warned that if the strain becomes established, it could lead to a TB epidemic leaving few options for treatment.