There's Going to Be TB Trouble.

NETHERLANDS; EUROPE

The European Union will get more than a slew of new member states on May 1. It will also get the makings of an epidemic of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. Of the more than 300,000 new cases of multidrug-resistant TB each year, four in five involve "superstrains" resistant to three or four main TB drugs, according to a report released last week by the World Health Organization. Last week the Royal Dutch Tuberculosis Foundation announced that six Dutch nationals had been infected with multidrug-resistant TB, the first such cases in the Netherlands. Using DNA testing, health officials traced the disease to an Eastern European woman living in the country. If preventive measures aren't put in place, health authorities fear the disease could overwhelm European health systems.