Saturday, March 24, was World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. The following is a summary of several editorials, opinion pieces, and blog posts published in recognition of the day.

"Almost a thousand Swazi and South African HIV activists marched to the United States consulate in Johannesburg on [Thursday] to demand that the U.S. continue supporting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, and safeguard funding of its President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)," PlusNews reports. "The march organizers -- a coalition of international and regional HIV organizations, including the global medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the World AIDS Campaign, and the AIDS Rights Alliance Southern Africa -- also called on the British and Australian governments to join their American counterparts in kick-starting a response to solve the Global Fund's financial crisis," according to the news service.

"About 900,000 cases of active tuberculosis (TB) were discovered and treated [in China] in 2011, including 423,000 infectious cases, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced Monday at a press conference," Xinhua reports. "Xiao Donglou, a health inspector from the MOH, said at the press conference that China improved its ability to prevent and control TB last year, focusing on HIV/TB co-infections and cases of TB among the country's migrant population," noting "1,701 HIV/TB co-infections were reported last year, as well as 51,682 cases of TB among the migrant population," the news agency writes.

In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Francis Adatu, head of the national leprosy and tuberculosis (TB) program in Uganda, warned that TB "remains a major public health problem" and that multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) has emerged in the country, the news service writes. "'According to our prevalence survey we found MDR-TB in 1.3 percent among new cases and 12.3 percent among people who have been exposed to drugs or treated over and over again,' Adatu said," Xinhua writes, noting that Adatu said treatment for MDR-TB was much more expensive than for drug-susceptible TB.