By Stephanie Nebehay
from YAHOO! NEWS

GENEVA (Reuters) - A new, untreatable form of tuberculosis is striking up to 30,000 people a year, the World Health Organization said on Friday, and warned it could spark an “apocalyptic scenario” if unchecked.

The United Nations agency appealed for $2.15 billion to combat drug-resistant TB under a program which it said could save up to 134,000 lives over two years.

Extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB), a form virtually immune to antibiotics, has been reported in 37 countries in all regions since emerging in 2006, according to the WHO.

“There is somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000, we roughly estimate, cases of extensive drug resistant TB each year,” Paul Nunn, coordinator of WHO’s Stop TB Department, told a briefing.

“Ultimately, to face down this epidemic, we need new tools — we need new drugs, we need new diagnostics,” he added.

The recent case of an American man with XDR-TB who traveled abroad triggered an international health scare, highlighting the potential risks of rapid spread.

XDR-TB cases are particularly difficult to treat, and a patient could infect other people for years, according to Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO’s Stop TB Department.

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