Forty-nine patients with multi-drug-resistant (MDR) or extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis cut through a wire fence to escape a Johannesburg hospital last week. Twenty-six patients have since returned, but the rest remain at large.
Authorities said the patients wanted to spend Christmas with their families.
South Africa is confronting an epidemic of tuberculosis, which is especially dangerous for the country’s 5.4 million citizens living with HIV. Several South African provinces have taken legal action to keep patients with drug-resistant TB under quarantine. Some of the recent escapees had been isolated in the hospital for eighteen months.
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