A young girl is inoculated with typhoid, Texas, 1943 | Wikimedia Commons New extensively drug-resistant variants of an ancient and deadly disease – typhoid fever – are spreading across international borders. Cases have been reported in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Iraq, Guatemala, UK, US, and Germany, as well as more recently in Australia and Canada . In recent years, drug resistant and travel-associated typhoid variants have also been spreading through the African continent . Under-reporting and international surveillance gaps mean that drug-resistant typhoid is probably even more extensive than we think. Causing fever, headache, abdominal pain and constipation or diarrhoea, typhoid is a bacterial disease. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi – the organism behind typhoid – kills up to one in five patients if left untreated. S. Typhi spreads from person to person in water and food, which have been contaminated by faeces. As a consequence, typhoid is often […]