World TB Day 2002 - In the News

UN News Wire
Headline: WHO Decries Funding Gap Ahead Of World TB Day Sunday
Date: 22 March 2002

A World Health Organization-recommended strategy to treat and diagnose tuberculosis, with a cure rate of up to 90 percent, is reaching only 27 percent of the world's TB patients, according to the WHO's annual report released today, ahead of World TB Day March 24.

An estimated $1 billion a year is needed to treat and control the epidemic through the Directly Observed Treatment Short-course strategy in the 22 countries that account for 80 percent of the world's TB burden, the WHO says.  The agency says, however, these low-income nations pay the bulk of the cost, leaving a $300 million annual gap.

The funding gap, which is about 30 cents per person in the industrialized world, has slowed the rate of prevention and pushed back 2005 targets -- to diagnose 70 percent of all active infectious TB cases and successfully treat 85 percent -- to 2013.

"Clearly, even the poorest countries are deeply committed to fighting this disease and the international community must respond just as vigorously," says J.W. Lee, WHO's director of the Stop TB initiative.  Nearly one-third of the world's population is infected with the disease, and 2 million people die of it each year, according to the WHO (WHO release, March 22).

Meanwhile, the World Bank is working with the U.K. Department for International Development in the fight against TB in China, approving a $104 million loan yesterday to expand the country's efforts to offer free access to high quality TB care in the poorest regions.  China has seen at least a 46 percent reduction in expected TB deaths in regions covered by DOTS, the bank said (World Bank release, March 21).

The Canadian International Development Agency today announced a donation of more than $24 million for new projects to help prevent and control tuberculosis in developing countries, including $2.1 million for Afghanistan.  "Tuberculosis has become the main infectious killer of young women in developing countries," said Susan Whelan, Canada's minister for international cooperation.  "It is also a leading cause of death among people infected with HIV, especially in Africa. ... At current funding levels, we will finance the cures of approximately half a million people per year"  (CIDA release, March 22).

Zimbabwe Faces TB Escalation

Zimbabwe has six times more TB cases than it did 20 years ago, officials say, adding that its spread will likely continue to escalate due to HIV/AIDS and poverty.   An estimated 110,000 cases will be diagnosed in the country next year, up from the 50,000 cases diagnosed last year, according to WHO spokeswoman Wendy Samunderu. 

The WHO and Zimbabwe's Health Ministry organized public awareness campaigns today in the region hardest-hit by the disease.  "TB is curable, but this infection remains a major cause of death amongst poor communities because of a lack of information and poor access to care and drugs," said Milton Chimoro, national director of the fight against TB (Isabelle Ligner, Agence France-Presse, March 22).

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