Even more alarming, well over half of these cases were resistant to multiple drugs right from the start, and not as a direct result of substandard treatment.

The Global Plan to Stop TB sets ambitious targets for addressing MDR-TB: by 2015, 100% of confirmed cases should be treated in programmes following international guidelines.

MDR-TB (Multidrug Resistant TB) describes strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to at least the two main first-line TB drugs - isoniazid and rifampicin.