WHO Report on TB

·         According to the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) report, India is home to over 3.4 million tuberculosis patients at any time - about one-fifth of the global figure, making it the country with the most TB prevalence - and over 325,000 people die of the disease every year.

·         India is the number one country in terms of TB prevalence and an alarming 17 percent of patients who have availed themselves of treatment earlier have developed multi-drug resistance (MDR).

·         The WHO report said that in 2006, India recorded 1.9 million new cases. Of all fresh cases in the country, 1.2 percent are infected with HIV and 2.8 percent of all new cases have been diagnosed with multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).

·         India's Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) has been launched in parts of the country that need special focus but the implementation will be a challenge.

·         WHO plans to expand collaborative TB-HIV activities nationally would need to reflect in the local variations of HIV epidemiology. .

·         Across the globe, there were 9.2 million new cases of TB during 2006, of which 700,000 cases were found among the people with HIV/AIDS - up from 22,000 in 2002.

·         Worldwide there are 500,000 cases of MDR-TB and an estimated 1.5 million people died from the disease in 2006. Another 200,000 people with HIV died from HIV-associated TB

·         WHO Director-General is Margaret Chan