Improved approach needed to handle TB
Source: Agencies |
May 19, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GLOBAL efforts to control tuberculosis have failed and radical new approaches are needed, experts say.
With more than 9 million people infected last year, including 2 million deaths, officials say there is more tuberculosis now than at any other time in history. In a special tuberculosis edition of the British medical journal Lancet published today, experts said past failures prove new strategies are required.
For years, the World Health Organization and partners have fought TB largely with a program where health workers watch patients take their drugs - even though the agency acknowledged in a 2008 report that this treatment program didn't significantly curb TB spread.
Experts said TB isn't only a medical problem, but is intertwined with poverty, as it spreads widely among people living in overcrowded, dirty places. They said TB programs need to go beyond health and include other sectors like housing, education and transportation.
Stevens said the global health community also needs to be more vigilant about the drugs they buy for TB programs. According to a 2007 report from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, half of the drugs the fund bought for poor countries didn't comply with their own quality standards.
Dr Mario Raviglione, head of WHO's TB department, said the recent fall in TB was "very minor" and the agency was trying to understand how better to fight the epidemic.
Still, WHO said their basic TB programs cured more than 36 million people between 1995 and 2008.
But the recent spread of drug-resistant TB illustrates there have been major shortcomings. Drug-resistant TB emerges when patients don't finish their pills or take substandard drugs - like many bought by the Global Fund.
With more than 9 million people infected last year, including 2 million deaths, officials say there is more tuberculosis now than at any other time in history. In a special tuberculosis edition of the British medical journal Lancet published today, experts said past failures prove new strategies are required.
For years, the World Health Organization and partners have fought TB largely with a program where health workers watch patients take their drugs - even though the agency acknowledged in a 2008 report that this treatment program didn't significantly curb TB spread.
Experts said TB isn't only a medical problem, but is intertwined with poverty, as it spreads widely among people living in overcrowded, dirty places. They said TB programs need to go beyond health and include other sectors like housing, education and transportation.
Stevens said the global health community also needs to be more vigilant about the drugs they buy for TB programs. According to a 2007 report from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, half of the drugs the fund bought for poor countries didn't comply with their own quality standards.
Dr Mario Raviglione, head of WHO's TB department, said the recent fall in TB was "very minor" and the agency was trying to understand how better to fight the epidemic.
Still, WHO said their basic TB programs cured more than 36 million people between 1995 and 2008.
But the recent spread of drug-resistant TB illustrates there have been major shortcomings. Drug-resistant TB emerges when patients don't finish their pills or take substandard drugs - like many bought by the Global Fund.
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