FACTBOX: Tuberculosis, a worldwide killer disease

Among the 15 countries with the highest estimated TB incidence rates, 13 are in Africa

Sept. 15, 2011, 2:32 p.m.

Tuberculosis (TB), a contagious disease that spreads through the air, is a worldwide pandemic.

Here are some facts about tuberculosis:

A total of 1.7 million people died from TB in 2009, including 380,000 people with HIV. This is equal to about 4,700 deaths a day.

There were 9.4 million new TB cases in 2009, of which 80 percent were concentrated in 22 countries. Per capita, the global TB incidence rate is falling, but the rate of decline is very slow.

TB is a disease of poverty, affecting mostly young adults in their most productive years. The vast majority of TB deaths are in the developing world, and more than half occur in Asia.
Among the 15 countries with the highest estimated TB incidence rates, 13 are in Africa, while a third of all new cases are in India and China.
If not treated, each person with active TB can infect on average 10 to 15 people a year.
More than two billion people, or one third of the world's total population, are infected with TB bacilli, the microbes that cause TB. One in every 10 of those people will become sick with active TB in his or her lifetime.
People who have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS are at a much greater risk of developing TB because their immune systems are weakened.
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is a form of TB that does not respond to the standard treatments using first-line drugs. MDR-TB is present in virtually all countries surveyed by the World Health Organisation and it is spreading at an “alarming rate” in Europe, in particular in Eastern Europe.
There were an estimated 440 000 new MDR-TB cases in 2008, with three countries -- China, India and Russia -- accounting for more than 50 percent of all cases globally.

AlertNet