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The emergence of untreatable strains of typhoid threatens a new global health emergency that requires urgent collective action, argue experts from Paediatrics and the Oxford Martin School in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

International neglect of typhoid outside rich countries threatens a new global health emergency © Shutterstock

Typhoid still affects at least 11 million people every year, with the real figure potentially as high as 18 million. On the eve of the rollout of a new typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV), the researchers are calling for global health institutions to dedicate new resources to tackling typhoid, which they say has become a neglected disease of poorer countries following its elimination in many high-income countries. Rising antimicrobial resistance and the ongoing outbreak of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid in Pakistan should be a wake-up call to the international community, they say.

New vaccines offer hope for typhoid control, but one intervention alone will be insufficient for eliminating the disease. Analysing the past and present of typhoid control, the researchers – including historians, immunologists and social scientists – identify a range of actions key to the strategic elimination of typhoid globally.

Read more (University of Oxford website)