Incidence of Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Urban and Rural India and Implications for Prevention

Abstract

We compared the incidence of multidrug resistance in 150 consecutive Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates obtained from a rural center (in Sakawar, India) and an urban tertiary care center (in Mumbai, India). The study highlights an alarmingly high percentage of multidrug-resistant M. tuberculosis isolates in Mumbai (51%) as compared with that at the rural center (2%).