A World without Tuberculosis

Gripping Facts (Source – WHO)

• Tuberculosis (TB) is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide due
to a single infectious agent.
• In 2010, 8.8 million people fell ill with TB and 1.4 million died from TB.
• In 2009, there were about 10 million orphan children as a result of TB deaths
among parents.
• Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) is present in virtually all countries surveyed.
• The estimated number of people falling ill with tuberculosis 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 40% between 1990 and 2010

What and How?

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB (short for tubercle bacillus) is a common, and in many
cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria,
usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis.[1] Tuberculosis typically attacks the lungs but can
also affect other parts of the body. It is spread through the air when people who have
an active TB infection cough, sneeze, or otherwise transmit their saliva through the air.
[2]

Efforts World Wide to Contain TB

1) WHO’s strategy

WHO's pursues six core functions in addressing TB.

• Provide global leadership on matters critical to TB.
• Develop evidence-based policies, strategies and standards for TB
prevention, care and control, and monitor their implementation.
• Provide technical support to Member States, catalyze change, and build
sustainable capacity.
• Monitor the global TB situation, and measure progress in TB care, control,
and financing.
• Shape the TB research agenda and stimulate the production, translation
and dissemination of valuable knowledge.
• Facilitate and engage in partnerships for TB action.

The WHO’s Stop TB Strategy, which is recommended for implementation by

all countries and partners, aims to dramatically reduce TB by public and
private actions at national and local levels such as:
• pursue high-quality DOTS expansion and enhancement. DOTS is a five-
point package to:
• secure political commitment, with adequate and sustained financing
• ensure early case detection, and diagnosis through quality-assured
bacteriology
• provide standardized treatment with supervision and patient support
 • ensure effective drug supply and management and
• monitor and evaluate performance and impact;
• address TB-HIV, MDR-TB, and the needs of poor and vulnerable
populations;
• contribute to health system strengthening based on primary health care;
• engage all care providers;
• empower people with TB, and communities through partnership;
• enable and promote research.

http://www.stoptb.org/

WHO’s The Stop TB Partnership is leading the way to a world without

tuberculosis (TB), Founded in 2001, the Partnership's mission is to serve every
person who is vulnerable to TB and ensure that high-quality treatment is
available to all who need it.

Targets

• By 2015: reduce the prevalence

of and death due to TB by 50%
relative to 1990 figures.
• By 2050: eliminate TB as a public health problem (<1 case per
million population).

2) Other charities
http://www.justgiving.com/worldwithouttb

http://www.who.int/topics/tuberculosis/en/

http://www.results.org.au/our-key-issues/current-campaigns/world-tb-
day2012/

Celebration OF world TB day

World Tuberculosis Day, falling on March 24 each year, is designed to build
public awareness about the global epidemic oftuberculosis and efforts to eliminate
the disease
World Tuberculosis Day 2010

On the occasion of World TB Day 2010, the International Committee of the

Red Cross declared that attempts to stem the spread of tuberculosis across the globe
are likely to fall well short of what is needed unless authorities in affected countries
significantly increase their efforts to stop the deadly disease from breeding inside
prisons. As a result of overcrowding and poor nutrition, TB rates in many prisons are
10 to 40 times higher than in the general public. The ICRC has been fighting TB in
prisons in the Caucasus region, Central Asia, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa for
more than a decade, either directly or by supporting local programs