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There are more cases of tuberculosis (TB) today than at any other time in history and 1.7 million people still die each year from the disease.
But all forms of TB are curable if they are diagnosed and treated in time. This is a disease of poverty, with 98% of deaths taking place in the developing world.
The rise of TB
TB has been on the rise since the 1980s, especially in South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, with the increase being directly connected to the HIV epidemic.
Globally, nearly four out of ten tuberculosis cases are still not properly detected and treated.
HIV slowly destroys the immune system, making people less resistant to tuberculosis. However TB is curable even in a person living with HIV. A third of people living with HIV across the world are also infected with TB, and in Africa the figure of co-infection reaches two thirds.
As with other infectious diseases, TB can lock families and communities into a cycle of poverty. It can prevent them from working or accessing education, with medical bills sometimes forcing families to sell belongings or put themselves at risk. All this increases poverty and makes them more vulnerable in the future.
The impact of TB
It has been estimated that TB can cost a country as much as 7% of its GDP. But research also suggests that the worst affected countries could see a ten-fold return on investments made in diagnosis and treatment. As with many other diseases, drug resistance is becoming more common, mainly as a result of poor diagnosis and unfinished treatment.
TB has been recognised as a global emergency. The Millennium Development Goals commit signatories to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV, malaria and other major diseases by 2015.
Calling a halt
The Stop TB Partnership was set up in 2000 and in the following year launched a Global Plan to Stop TB. This sets out actions required from 2006 to 2015, estimating that 14 million lives could be saved as a result. But there is still a funding shortfall to implement the plan.
The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002, and by the end of 2008 its supported programmes had detected and treated 4.6 million extra cases of tuberculosis.
Many countries are successfully tackling TB, and targets to reduce prevalence and deaths by half by 2015 could be met in most regions. However, sub-Saharan Africa is way off track – mostly due to HIV.
Health Poverty Action says:
- Access to free drugs and treatment, and quicker and more accurate diagnosis technology is urgently needed. The most commonly used TB diagnostic, sputum microscopy, is more than 120 years old. More money is also needed for research into better drugs and vaccinations.
- Innovative measures to make sure patients complete their course of drugs are needed to prevent drug resistance. Getting the basics right of better diagnosis and infection control will help combat drug resistance.
- Behind any push to eliminate TB must be the long-term development of sustainable and comprehensive national health systems. This includes clinics and hospitals, more trained health workers and more mobile staff and health outposts in remote areas.
- There must also be a concerted effort to tackle poverty and to address the poor nutrition and poor living or working conditions that perpetuate vulnerability to TB.
- International donors must live up to their funding promises on overseas development aid, and provide the funding needed to fully roll out the Global Plan to Stop TB.
What is Health Poverty Action doing to help?
- Poor indigenous children in Burma’s Wa region are being vaccinated against TB.
