WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAYS TUBERCULOSIS DEATHS REACH HISTORIC LEVELS
Press Release
H/2903
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAYS TUBERCULOSIS DEATHS REACH HISTORIC LEVELS
19960322 GENEVA, 21 March (WHO) -- More people died form tuberculosis in 1995 than in any other year in history, according to a report released today by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the report, nearly 3 million people died from TB in 1995, surpassing the worst years of the epidemic around 1900, when an estimated 2.1 million people died annually.The WHO warned that the TB crisis will continue to grow unless immediate action is taken. At current rates, up to a half billion people could become sick with TB in the next 50 years. Increasingly, these people may become sick with often-incurable multidrug-resistant TB.
"Not only has TB returned, it has upstaged its own horrible legacy", said Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, Director-General of the World Health Organization.
According to the WHO report, entitled "Groups at Risk", TB has increasingly assailed all segments of society. It is now the leading infectious killer of youth and adults. It has become the principle killer of HIV-positive people an kills more women than all causes of maternal mortality combined. Nearly half of the world's refugees may be infected with TB. It is likely that no other infectious disease is creating as many orphans and devastating as many families.
"There is nowhere to hide from tuberculosis bacteria", warned Dr. Arata Kochi, Director of the WHO Global TB Programme. "Anyone can catch TB simply by inhaling a TB germ that has been coughed or sneezed into the air. These germs can remain suspended in the air for hours; even years. We are all at risk."
The disease has returned with a vengeance to wealthy countries, as increases air travel and migration have helped transport it throughout the world. Multidrug-resistant TB, which has cost New York City hundreds of millions of dollars to fight, has now been reported in London, Milan, Paris, Atlanta, Chicago and cities throughout the developing world. In particular, the number of multidrug-resistant cases in Asia are expected to increase rapidly, unless TB control efforts are strengthened.
According to the WHO report, unprecedented levels of neglect during the 1970s and 1980s helped to create this situation. In 1993, the WHO declared a global TB emergency, prompting some governments to increase their response to TB. However, the TB epidemic continues to outpace these modest efforts.
- 2 - Press Release H/2903 22 March 1996
The WHO endorses a strategy known as directly observed treatment, short- course, or "DOTS", which has proven successful in fighting TB. Countries that follow the WHO recommended DOTS strategy, such as the United Republic of Tanzania, China and Peru, have discovered that they can double the number of TB patients cured. The DOTS strategy can cure nearly 95 per cent of TB patients, using medicines that cost less than $11 in some parts of the world.
The secret to the success of the DOTS strategy is that it places the responsibility for curing TB patients on the health workers, not the patients. The TB epidemic has spread rapidly over the past decades because patients often forget to take their medicines, remain contagious and continue to infect others in their communities. With the DOTS strategy, health workers watch as patients swallow their medicines and track each patient's progress, ensuring that contagious people are cured.
According to the WHO, only 10 per cent of the world's TB patients are being treated with the DOTS strategy. If the DOTS strategy were used through a dozen large countries -- such as Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russian Federation, South Africa and Zaire -- nearly three fourths of the world's TB cases could be cured. As of 1995, only a few of these countries had aggressively committed to establishing and expanding TB control based on DOTS.
"The longer we wait to establish DOTS programmes around the world, the more expensive TB treatment will become, and the less likely it will be that we will ever stop this disease", said Dr. Nakajima. "In the meantime, millions of men, women and children are needlessly dying."
The WHO is releasing this report prior to World TB Day, 24 March. World TB Day commemorates the day in 1982 when Dr. Robert Koch officially informed the scientific community that he had discovered the TB bacillus. Yet Koch's discovery and the effective drugs that were later developed have seen limited use. As a result, TB has sent at least 200 million people to their graves since 1882.
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