A strain of typhoid could become virtually untreatable

TYPHOID affects some 21m people each year, and about 1% of cases are fatal. Before antibiotics were used to treat the disease 70 years ago, death rates were much higher. If left unchecked, typhoid can cause internal bleeding, perforation of the gut and, in up to a fifth of cases, death. Researchers are now concerned that an "extensively drug resistant" (XDR) strain of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi (S. typhi), the bacterium that causes the disease, could see a return to those dangerous days....