World TB Day 2002 - In the News

Agence France Presse
Headline: Tuberculosis-hit South Asia vows to quash deadly disease
Dateline: NEW DELHI, March 24, 2002

South Asian governments pledged Sunday to step up efforts against tuberculosis, which kills hundreds of thousands of people each year in the impoverished region even though the disease is treatable.

Some 45 percent of the world's tuberculosis cases are recorded in South Asia alone, where many of the rural poor lack access to basic medical care, according to the World Health Organization.

In India, more than 1,000 people die every day from tuberculosis, which infects four more people every minute, said statistics released to observe World Tuberculosis Day. In a message published in newspapers, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee appealed to health officials both inside and outside government to ensure that everyone with tuberculosis receives proper care.

"Tuberculosis kills more adults than any other infectious disease, kills more women than all causes of maternal mortality combined and creates more orphans than any other cause. It also disproportionately affects the poor," Vajpayee wrote.

But he said a government programme started three years ago to prevent and treat tuberculosis has covered 450 million people and saved 100,000 lives annually.

He said the programme would be expanded to cover 800 million people within two years.

TB is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria which attacks the lungs, glands, brain and genitals. Nearly two million people worldwide died of TB last year.

In Bangladesh, every year some 70,000 people die and 300,000 more people contract tuberculosis.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said poverty alleviation and improvement of Bangladesh's living standards must be linked to a national campaign against tuberculosis.

She said government hospitals nationwide were providing free treatment and medicine to TB patients.

But the disease often turns fatal in the impoverished country when patients fail to receive prescribed medication or close health supervision, said Maswoodur Rahman Prince, a Bangladeshi doctor.

He said TB not only kills and cripples its victims, but also forces hundreds of Bangladeshis to lose their jobs.

In Nepal, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba called, in a message, for health workers and members of civil society to join ranks with the government to combat the disease.

Some 5,000 doctors, nurses and others took part in a rally in the capital Kathmandu, where banners read the slogan of World Tuberculosis Day: "Let's prevent tuberculosis and combat poverty."

The disease claims between 8,000 and 11,000 lives each year in Nepal, were about 44,000 new cases come up annually.

The government has set up some 229 treatment centers in all the kingdom's 75 districts to combat the disease.

Nepal is planning to start a strategy known as the directly observed treatment short-course, or DOTS, under which free diagnosis and treatment is offered to all.

The DOTS strategy has had a 90 percent cure rate in East Asian countries in which it has been implemented.

The symptoms of TB include a persistent cough which is not responsive to antibiotics, fever and weight loss. It may occur outside of the lungs in lymph nodes, bones, kidneys and the central nervous system.

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