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World Tuberculosis Day
2012
World
TB Day is on March 24, 2012. This year India set an ambitious target
to detect and treat 90% of all TB cases in the country by 2015.
Multi-Drug Resistant TB
The World Health Organisation defines Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB) as resistance to at least two of the first line drugs used: rifampicin and
ionized. It is, by and large, caused when patients default on treatment, though it is also known to be caused by spontaneous mutation of the bacteria as well.
The world is also concerned now about XDR-TB or eXtensively Drug Resistant TB, a subset of MDR-TB also resistant
to fluoroquinolones and one of the three injectibles, Kanamycin, Capreomycin and Amikacin.
XDR-TB has been noted as an emerging health threat, especially in countries like India, with a high prevalence of
HIV. Tuberculosis Control India, the wing of the Union Ministry of Health that implements the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme
(RNTCP), indicates that MDR-TB levels in the country are about three per cent in new cases and 12-17 per cent in re-treatment cases.
WHO estimates that a third of the world's population is infected with
TB, which depletes the incomes of the world's poorest communities by $12 billion a year. However, only 61% of all TB cases worldwide are
registered. Last month, WHO said drug-resistant TB was spreading faster than ever. Globally,
there are about 500,000 new cases of drug-resistant TB every year, about 5 percent of the 9 million new TB cases, WHO said.
World Tuberculosis Day 2010
TB control programmes, the detection rate has gone up in the region.Tuberculosis is a disease of the poor as it is widely found in developing
countries like India, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on
March 24, 2010 on the World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, revealing that India alone contributes 20 per cent of the disease burden across
the globe. “India contributes one fifth of the world TB cases. It has high morbidity and
mortality rates due to tuberculosis,” South-East Asia regional director of WHO, Samlee Plianbangchang, said here on World Tuberculosis Day.
Plianbangchang said, “Though TB prevalence has been halved and mortality rate
reduced by a third in South East Asia by the end of 2009, a social and economic protocol is necessary to curb the disease.”
The WHO authorities also said that among the TB patients, over four percent have
HIV infection too. The WHO also released a regional report on TB control which estimates that
South-East Asia registered 2.2 million TB patients in 2009. Almost 15 million
patients have been cured in ten years, the global health watchdog’s report
revealed. Plianbangchang also said that due to greater participation of people other than just doctors in the |
World TB day 2011 on March 24
* TB is contagious and spread through the air.
* If untreated each person with active TB infects 10-15 people every day.
* 2 billion people or one third of the world population are infected with TB.
* TB kills 4400 people per day.
* 1.7 million people died from TB in 2006.
* There were 9.2 million new cases of TB in 2006.
The theme of
2009 TB year's day is 'I Am Stopping TB'.
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World Tuberculosis Day 2009
World Tuberculosis Day 2009 is on
march 24, The message of this year is Stop the savage killer and spread the awareness is the only way to beat this
dreaded disease, TB is curable provided one has the will to fight
it. With the threat of drug-resistant strains of TB now a certain reality,
spreading awareness about the need to stick to drug regimens and continue with the full course of the treatment is surely the road to take.
World Tuberculosis day 2008
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon called for increased international action on
World TB Day to stop the global tuberculosis epidemic that is killing 4,000
people every day. In a message to mark the day, Mr Ban said: "The man-made multi-drug resistant
strain and its even more lethal form, extensively drug-resistant TB, are both
spreading. That is why the theme of this year's day is 'I Am Stopping TB'.
India has reported nearly 1.4 million TB cases in the year 2006 contributing to one-fifth of the total global cases.
The country continued to report high morbidity and mortality due to tuberculosis
and as many as 1.39 million cases were reported in 2006, according to a report
on tuberculosis in the South East Asia region by the WHO. In 2005, more than 3.2 lakh deaths were reported due to tuberculosis in the
country, it said. The pace to control the disease slowed slightly in 2006 major due to India and
China which accounted for 63 per cent of the new cases in the past year, the
report released on the occasion of World TB Day 2008, said on March 24.
Tuberculosis in India
In 1993 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared tuberculosis to be a global
emergency. WHO estimates that about a 1/3rd of the world population was
infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. About nine million people were
diagnosed with tuberculosis each year, and that tuberculosis causes nearly
two million victims each year.
According to WHO reports, India is the home to over 3.4 million tuberculosis
patients - about one-fifth of the global figure. India is the number one country
in terms of TB prevalence and an alarming 17 per cent of patients who have
availed themselves of treatment earlier have developed multi-drug resistance
(MDR) due to the concurrent associated secondary infections. It was revealed
that in the year 2005, 325,172 people in India became victims of this dreadful
disease. In 2006, 9.2 million new cases were reported in India.
According to the findings of WHO's latest
global tuberculosis control report, India is the world's TB capital recording an estimated 1.9 million new cases every year.
However, only 70% of these are actually detected and put on the highly effective DOTS
programme. Each of these active TB patients left undetected go on to infect 10-15 people on an
average, every year. The report said that for every five TB cases diagnosed globally in 2006, four went undetected.
Over six lakh Indians, unaware that they suffer from tuberculosis, are spreading
the disease among healthy individuals, seriously jeopardizing global
efforts to halve new infection and death rates before 2015.
Acording to Nani Nair India is not really lagging behind as far as reporting TB
cases was concerned. "In India a large number of patients are getting treated
from private practitioner whose number goes unrecorded". There is an increase from 9.1 million cases in 2005, due to population growth.
India, China, Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria rank first to fifth respectively in terms of absolute number of cases.
The African region has the highest incidence rate per capita, the report said
adding there were an estimated 14.4 million prevalent cases of TB in 2006.
An estimated 1.5 million people died from TB in 2006. In addition, another
2,00,000 people with HIV died from HIV-associated TB, the report said.
In developing countries, WHO main tuberculosis treatment program depends on
patients volunteering to be tested, instead of doctors seeking out patients.
WHO Espinal estimated that only about 60 percent of infected patients are diagnosed. |
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Tuberculosis Causes
Tuberculosis is an infection caused by bacterial complex, predominantly
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and more rarely Mycobacterium bovis. People are
infected by inhaling the bacterium in sputum droplets that are released when a
person with active TB of the lungs (pulmonary TB) coughs.
Tuberculosis Symptoms
Symptoms include persistent cough
for more than three weeks, unexplained weight loss, fever, chest pain and loss of appetite.
Research Work
Research work has been conducted on the leaf extract of Pithecellobium dulce to
prove the efficacy of the plant against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
This plants extracts would help conquer tuberculosis and save lives.
New test to diagnose TB in minutes: A simple breath test could be used to diagnose lung infections such as TB in minutes, say US scientists who
have identified the ‘fingerprints’ of different strains of bacteria by
testing the breath of mice. A similar technique could reduce the time it takes to diagnose lung infections in humans.
Traditionally to diagnose lung infections, it requires the collection of
a sputum sample that is used to grow bacteria and biochemically test it.
The process can take days. |
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