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Tuberculosis – hope does battle with concern
The World Health Organisation tells us that over the course of 15 years, 8 million lives have been saved thanks to the DOTS Strategy to combat tuberculosis. Nevertheless, this disease remains one of the most deadly. In 2008, it killed no fewer than 1.8 million people!
Fifteen years of investment against tuberculosis have produced concrete results in terms of human lives saved, explains the WHO’s Dr Mario Raviglione. But progress is still far too slow for us to hope to achieve our goal of eliminating tuberculosis.
Millions of patients are indeed still without access to quality health care. The association between TB and HIV/AIDS also continues to play havoc. Although the number of TB sufferers who underwent a screening test for HIV increased between 2007 and 2008, the figure is still far from what it should be. Of the 1.8 million TB sufferers who died in 2008, more than 500,000 were HIV-positive.
Furthermore, multi-resistant and ultra-resistant forms of tuberculosis are proving to be an ever greater threat. For example, it is estimated that each year around the world half a million people are affected by multi-resistant tuberculosis … though only 30,000 cases are officially reported and only 6,000 received treatment during the course of 2008.
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9 article(s)
Tuberculosis: monitoring every patient
TB – drug resistance on the increase in the East!
Europe now has its Berlin Declaration against TB
Tuberculosis: the bacillus is becoming increasingly resistant to treatment!
Smoking leaves us more vulnerable to tuberculosis
Will tuberculosis become incurable?
