- England and Wales have a higher increasing rate of tuberculosis
than any other country in the EU and the government must develop an action
plan to combat this "very real threat", British lung doctors
warned today.
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- The warning, which came on world tuberculosis day, was
echoed by other health organisations that weighed in with predictions about
the global rise of drug-resistant TB and the lack of modern medicine to
fight the disease.
-
- Tuberculosis, or consumption - as it used to be called,
is an infectious disease that usually attacks the lungs, but can attack
almost any part of the body. It is spread from person to person through
the air.
-
- Over the past 10 years, the number of cases of TB have
increased by almost 20% in England and Wales, according to figures from
the British Thoracic Society (BTS). In 2002, there were 6,891 known cases.
-
- In the same period, Germany saw a decrease of 35% and
France and Spain have also experienced a drop in the number of reported
cases.
-
- The British lung specialist Dr Peter Ormerod said: "TB
is a national public health disaster waiting to happen in the UK and this
is certainly not helped by the lack of specialist TB staff in the country.
It is essential, especially in high incidence areas, that real investments
are made in frontline resources and staffing if we are to turn the tide
against the disease."
-
- Another TB expert at the BTS, Dr John Moore-Gillon, said
the disease was a "very real threat" in England and Wales but
was continually ignored on the public health agenda.
-
- Dr Moore-Gillon said: "We would urge the government
to prioritise the TB action plan that was promised for early 2003 to help
this situation from spiralling out of control."
-
- Globally, eastern Europe and central Asia have the highest
instances of drug-resistant TB, known as multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB),
according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Patients in these regions
are 10 times more likely to have MDR-TB. China, Ecuador, Israel and South
Africa are also identified as key areas.
-
- The WHO is spearheading the TB international awareness
day and has published its own report on containing the disease, Global
Tuberculosis Control.
-
- The director of the WHO's stop TB department, Dr Mario
Raviglione, said: "It is in the interest of every country to support
rapid scale-up of TB control if we are to overcome MDR-TB. Passport control
will not halt drug resistance; investment in global TB prevention will."
-
- The WHO estimates that there are some 300,000 new cases
per year of MDR-TB worldwide. New evidence proves that drug-resistant strains
are becoming more impervious and unresponsive to treatment. "Super
strains" are resistant to at least three of the four main drugs used
to cure TB and make up 79% of MDR-TB cases.
-
- The international medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres
(MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) called for money to update TB treatment
and detection methods. It claims that current frontline TB drugs, which
were developed between the 1940s and 1960s, are outdated and that diagnostic
tests are failing to stem the rise of worldwide TB patients.
-
- The lung disease frequently coincides with HIV/Aids,
and is harder to treat when the virus is present.
-
- The MSF International president, Dr Rowan Gillies, said:
"Delivering adequate TB care requires a reliable diagnostic test for
TB to begin with, but we don't have one. A growing number of TB patients
worldwide also have HIV/Aids, but the current diagnostic tool can only
detect TB in 50% of HIV patients - even in a well-run TB programme."
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- MSF currently treats approximately 20,000 TB patients
in 30 projects around the world. Around nine million people in the world
suffer from TB and two million die each year.
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- SocietyGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1176774,00.html
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