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| STOP TB PARTNERSHIP |
World TB Day, falling on March 24th each year, is designed to build public awareness that tuberculosis today remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of nearly one-and-a-half million people each year, mostly in developing countries. It commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. At the time of Koch’s announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people. Koch’s discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB. –STOP TB PARTNERSHIP
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| Thehimalayantimes (24th March 2015) |
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable.
TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected.
About one-third of the world’s population has latent TB, which means people have been infected by TB bacteria but are not (yet) ill with the disease and cannot transmit the disease.
Key facts
- Tuberculosis (TB) is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide due to a single infectious agent.
- In 2013, 9 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died from the disease.
- Over 95% of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, and it is among the top 5 causes of death for women aged 15 to 44.
- In 2013, an estimated 550 000 children became ill with TB and 80 000 HIV-negative children died of TB.
- TB is a leading killer of HIV-positive people causing one fourth of all HIV-related deaths.
- Globally in 2013, an estimated 480 000 people developed multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
- The estimated number of people falling ill with TB each year is declining, although very slowly, which means that the world is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal to reverse the spread of TB by 2015.
- The TB death rate dropped 45% between 1990 and 2013.
- An estimated 37 million lives were saved through TB diagnosis and treatment between 2000 and 2013.
Kantipur News Paper 23rd March 2015
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| STOP TB PARTNERSHIP |
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| STOP TB PARTNERSHIP |
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| STOP TB PARTNERSHIP |
