WHO takes aim at tuberculosis with new 5-year plan

13.10.2010 [23:14]
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Baku, October 13 (AZERTAC). The World Health Organization laid out a new plan on Wednesday to combat tuberculosis and the nearly 2 million deaths it causes each year through a combination of better testing, diagnosis and drugs.

"The Global Plan to Stop TB 2011-2015" will cost about $47 billion, with money going to fund more testing labs and research projects to develop and deliver medicine to treat the disease, it said in its plan.

"The stakes are high: without rapid scale-up of TB prevention and treatment, some 10 million people will die of a curable disease by 2015," said Marcos Espinal, the partnership`s executive secretary.

TB is an ancient illness, with most cases curable if detected early and treated with antimicrobial drugs, the WHO said.

All countries are affected but most of the cases occur in Asia and Africa. India and China account for 35 percent of all cases. TB ranks as the eighth-leading cause of death in low- and middle-income countries, it said.

The WHO is looking for about half the money for the programme to come from high-income countries and said if fully implemented, it could save about 5 million lives.

WHO takes aim at tuberculosis with new 5-year plan

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