Underfunding is a growing concern, though, says WHO
TB patient in Ethiopia being carried by her sons (photo, WHO)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Sustained efforts by a number of large countries are responsible for much of the dramatic improvement in the global picture for tuberculosis, the World Health Organization said late Tuesday 11 October.
China has halved the prevalence of the disease and seen the number of people dying from TB fall by 80 percent in the past decade. Brazil, Kenya and Tanzania have pumped resources into fighting the disease with very good results.
Worldwide, says the UN health organization in its WHO 2011 global tuberculosis control report, published 11 October, that:
- the number of people who fell ill with TB dropped to 8.8 million in 2010, after peaking at 9 million in 2005
- TB deaths fell to 1.4 million in 2010, after reaching 1.8 million in 2003
- the TB death rate dropped 40 percent between 1990 and 2010, and all regions, except Africa, are on track to achieve a 50 percent decline in mortality by 2015
- in 2009, 87 percent of patients treated were cured, with 46 million people successfully treated and seven million lives saved since 1995. However, a third of estimated TB cases worldwide are not notified and therefore it is unknown whether they have been diagnosed and properly treated.
Funding gap hitting multidrug resistant cases
The WHO says in a statement that rapid progress is being made in detecting multidrug resistant (MDR) TB, thanks to new tests that are being widely adopted. But detection is outpacing treatment for the MDR cases:
Geneva, Switzerland and Washington, DC (GenevaLunch) - US Attorney General Eric Holder is being urged to review the case of Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS banker whose testimony was instrumental in the US government’s case of tax fraud against the Swiss bank. Birkenfeld was sentenced in August 2009 to 40 months in prison for his role in aiding his clients to avoid paying taxes in the USA.
