UN chief urges global fight against TB

By EDITH M. LEDERER
The U.N. secretary-general on Monday urged stepped-up action to stop the global tuberculosis epidemic that is killing 4,000 people every day.
In a message marking World TB Day, Ban Ki-moon 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."
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by bacteria that attack the lungs. It is spread through the air and typically requires six to 18 months of treatment. The extensively drug-resistant strain is virtually untreatable in poor countries.
In a report last week, the World Health Organization said the fight to control TB has slowed. It said the rate of new cases fell by less than 1 percent between 2005 and 2006, which WHO called "very modest."
"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. India and China report the most cases, followed by Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria.