U.N. Chief Urges Action On Tuberculosis

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged stepped-up international action on World TB Day to stop the global tuberculosis epidemic that is killing 4,000 people every day.

In a message on Monday to mark the day, Ban said "the man-made multi-drug resistant strain and its even more lethal form, extensively drug-resistant TB, are both spreading."

"That is why the theme of this year's day is `I Am Stopping TB'," he said. "This is a fight that can be won only with the collective commitment of millions of individuals — donors and researchers, doctors and health care workers, patients and family members."

In a report last week, the World Health Organization said the fight to control TB has slowed to a crawl, threatening efforts to control the disease.

The worldwide rate of TB infection has been declining since it peaked several years ago, but the rate of new cases fell by less than 1 percent between 2005 and 2006, which WHO called "very modest." Ideally, health officials want to see yearly decreases of 5-7 percent.

Compounding the problem is that drug-resistant TB is growing faster than ever, according to last month's WHO report.

"Thanks to a broad coalition of partners working to stop TB, the proportion of people who become ill with the disease is slowly falling," Ban said. "But this progress is not keeping pace with population growth, so more and more people are becoming infected with tuberculosis."

"World TB Day is an occasion to urge action to stop tuberculosis, a disease which still kills an appalling 4,000 people every day," he said.

In 2006, there were an estimated 9.2 million new tuberculosis cases and 1.5 million deaths, the WHO said in its latest report. The figures are based on government data from 202 countries and regions, with India and China reporting the most cases, followed by Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria. By region, Asia has 55 percent of cases, and Africa has 31 percent, the report said.

Ban said the United Nations will hold a global forum in June to boost efforts to drive down TB deaths associated with HIV/AIDS. He cited Rwanda, Kenya and Malawi which have made major strides in screening TB patients for the HIV virus, and HIV-infected people for TB.