Multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis cases in parts of the former Soviet Union have reached the highest rates ever recorded and could soar even higher, spreading the bacterial disease elsewhere, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday in releasing findings from the largest global survey of the problem.

The highest rate was in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where 22.3 percent of new tuberculosis cases were resistant to the standard anti-tuberculosis drug regimen during the survey period from 2002 to 2006. That exceeded the previous high of 14.2 percent, in Kazakhstan.

Studies in China also suggest that multiple-drug-resistant TB is widespread in the inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang regions, W.H.O. said.

The new survey, the first in four years, shows that earlier predictions were correct and that governments have lost control of tuberculosis in many areas. The reason, health officials say, is that countries have failed to invest enough to build, equip and staff the laboratories needed to detect the disease. The countries also failed to assure sufficient amounts of standard drugs and then to monitor patients to ensure that they complete a full course of therapy.