The World Health Organization said today that an estimated 1.7 million people died from TB worldwide last year, mainly African and Asian adults in their prime. Of the estimated 9.4 million new cases last year, 1.1 million were co-infected with HIV, WHO said.
"There are still 1.7 million deaths every year from a disease that is perfectly curable in 2010," said Mario Raviglione, director of WHO's Stop TB department.
Countries need to ensure that patients have access to treatment and that antibiotics are used properly, WHO said.
"In terms of treatment, possibly in the next two to three years, we will have for the first time I would say since the 1970s two or three compounds that are effective against multidrug-resistant TB [MDR TB]," Raviglione said. "So this will give us an extra weapon."
Possible new treatments in the pipeline include nitroimidazole by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Tibotec's diarylquinoline.
Just a small number of MDR TB infections are reported to WHO, which estimates there were some 440,000 cases worldwide in 2008. MDR TB is most prevalent in China, India, and Russia. WHO estimates only 10,000 MDR TB cases were being treated with the proper drugs because high-prevalence countries often lack diagnostic capacity to identify resistance.
"This is probably the biggest challenge of all and the one that countries at the moment are not facing the way they should," said Raviglione.
WHO's plan to fight TB globally during 2011-2015 will require about $47 billion.
11/11/10
GLOBAL: WHO Says Deadly TB Scourge Preventable
Source: Reuters (11.11.10):: Stephanie Nebehay; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention