Ellee Seymour

While the UK gears itself in its usual haphazard way for influenza and bird flu, what thought is it giving to the threat of a TB outbreak?

Health officials raised the alert yesterday over a new drug-resistant and more deadly form of tuberculosis, saying the disease now posed a more serious threat to Europe than at any time since the Second World War.

TB is described as the world’s deadliest curable illness and is spread by coughing and sneezing. There are 9 million new cases around the world each year, resulting in 2 million deaths, and it has taken a strong hold in and around the EU’s borders, particularly in former Soviet countries. There were 7,167 cases reported in the UK in 2004, a 5% increase of 6,837 cases in 2003. The 2005 figures will be published in December, and are certain to soar again.

Despite TB cases rising steadily over recent years, with one of the contributory factors being the insurgence of migratory workers from Eastern Europe, this Government decided in its wisdom to stop  giving TB vaccinations to young teenagers in our schools last year.

My youngest son was due to have had then, but I decided I didn’t want him to be at risk and he had the vaccination at a private medical centre. My reason was that TB has been prevalent in my village, I know a couple of families who suffered from it in the last 10 years. Our area is full of migrant workers and it would be too easy to stand next to an infected person who was coughing and sneezing. Other parents were not aware this vaccine had been stopped, obviously another penny-pinching exercise from the Government.

But it’s not just rural areas that are affected, London had the the highest numbers, 44% of the total increase in reported cases were based in the capital. In London it has been on the rise for about a decade and rates in some areas such as Newham are as high as 100 per 100,000. The foreign-born born population made up 70% of the latest reported cases.

I met someone yesterday who remembered TB being prevalent in South Wales, and said he feared it more than bird flu. Another person told me how his mother died from it too. There are plenty of warning signs here for the Government, can we be confident that our country has adequate specialised treatment centres with isolation facilities to cope with an outbreak? Or have they been victims of cutbacks too?

I don’t understand the reasons for NICE’s refusal to allow Alzheimer sufferers access to drugs costing £2.50 a day at the early stage of this terrible, soul destroying illness.

There was enough evidence on the news this morning from sufferers who described the incredible difference it had made to their lives in a matter of weeks.

If the drugs do not prove effective, then surely the medication will be stopped, why can it not be left to the doctors’ discretion? Why deny them that option which could totally transform their life? There is never one drug that suits everybody, it’s often trial and error before the right one is discovered.

I do not understand why NICE insist that these drugs should only be prescribed to patients when the condition has further deteriorated, rather than at its early stages. It must be more cost effective to prevent any illness from worsening, particularly one as distressing and debilitating as Alzheimer’s, than paying for long term treatment and care.

NICE says the drugs are not value for money - surely they should let the sufferers decide that, isn’t that why we live in a democracy? I hope NICE’s latest decision will be subject to a further appeal or judicial review.

The Alzheimer’s Association is naturally outraged with NICE, claiming their decision is badly flawed. They are the experts on this illness and NICE disregarded their professional evidence.

My butcher’s wife has Alzheimers, I saw the fear in her eyes when she told me about the dreadful diagnosis, she had seen the suffering it caused a close relative. My neighbour’s mother is in a care home suffering a more advanced form of Alzheimer’s, she still does not know her son was married a couple of weeks ago.

NICE have failed to justify their reasons for denying these life-saving drugs to Alzheimer patients in its early stages, yet you really couldn’t get better value for money at £2.50 a day, how penny pinching is that?