TB Remains World ’s Single Largest Infectious Killer, says WHO

A TB patient in a treatment facility in Liberia. Unlike him, many infected persons do not get the care they need. Credit: Francesco PistilliBy Mandy S.skerWASHINGTON DC, Oct 10 2018 (IPS)A disease that we know how to prevent, treat, and cure has become the world’s leading infectious killer: tuberculosis (TB), an airborne bacterial infection. A new report by the World Health Organization (WHO), launched in New York on September 18, found for the fourth year in a row, that TB remains the world’s single largest infectious killer, responsible for 10 million infections and 1.6 million deaths in 2017.Still, in many countries, the disease — and those who suffer from it — is overlooked as a normal part of poverty and treated as an unsolvable problem.Such neglect is the real problem. Currently, we do not know the full extent of who is sick with TB. Out of the estimated 10 million people who became sick with the disease in in 2017, national health systems only identified 6.4 million.This means they have failed to find and treat one out of every three people, or 3.6 million, with TB. In the TB community, we refer to these people as “missing”; they are real people out there suffering, who are undiagnosed or unreported, and where the quality of care – if there was care at all – is simply unknown.How can we quell an epidemic where over one-third of people with the disease are missing? The truth is, we cannot. Infected with an airborne infectious disease, these “missing”...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Featured Global Headlines Health Population Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news