Similar views. New cases of tuberculosis in 2011 very similar to 2010, according to a new report.
Global Tuberculosis Report 2012, World Health Organization
Tuberculosis (TB) continues to cause a "huge" burden of disease, according to an update released today by the World health Organization (wHO) estimates that there were 8.7 million new cases in 2011 and 1.4 million deaths. But there are high hopes that improved diagnosis and medications will, in the coming years to make a significant dent in the search for people who have the disease, the provision of appropriate treatment for their lives, and slow spread Mycobacterium tuberculosis itself.
The WHO figures Global Tuberculosis Report 2012 are similar to those published the previous year. "TB control and care is at a crossroads," said Mario Raviglione, who heads the STOP TB program of WHO, during a press conference in Washington, DC "Firstly we have existing as well as new tools on the horizon which could make a significant difference and even support dreams of elimination in some settings. But then, we are at risk of stagnation if additional resources are not mobilized urgently by governments of endemic countries first and if the international community is not ready to fill the gaps. "
the new report of 272 pages underlines that much progress has done against tuberculosis between 1995 and 2011, during which 51 million people have received a full course of treatment, which lasts a minimum of 6 month and lives 20 million were saved. But multidrug-resistant (MDR-TB) remains a huge problem, with 630,000 cases worldwide; only one in five of these people receives a proper diagnosis necessary for effective treatment.
The estimated new cases fell by 100,000, which, even taking into account the population growth is a modest decline of 2.2% between 2010 and 2011. The proportion of people with TB are co-infected with HIV remains broadly unchanged at 13%, but it is more than 50% in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. What is clearly new to the report this year, Raviglione said, is the first estimate ever made of the burden of TB in children: half a million TB developed in 2011 and 64,000 died of the disease.
The report highlights some improvements. Many countries have begun using a new diagnosis, a machine called GeneXpert, which has a much higher accuracy than the centennial microscopy test, which is widely used and requires a lot less work. The GeneXpert test two hours can also determine if a person has MDR TB; before, it took several weeks for the culture Mr. TB , and then test the bacilli drug sensitivity. But the Xpert test is considerably more expensive: In South Africa in 2011, the government paid at least $ 15 for each test of the machine, compared to $ 3 for a microscopic test of sputum.
As noted in the report, the company that makes GeneXpert, Cepheid of Sunnyvale, California, in August agreed to sell the cartridge from the machine uses, making the chain reaction of the polymerase on sputum samples -to a discount of 41% to hit hard and countries with limited resources. June 2012, 67 countries had purchased the reduced system.
The report also highlights that for the first time in decades, two new TB drugs are about to hit the market. The drugs, which should receive regulatory approval in the coming months, will be first used to treat MDR and promise to have less toxicity and work faster than treatments currently in use. A short-term plan to cure the regular TB and a vaccine that can reliably prevent most cases of the disease are still far - although attempts to make these dreams become reality longheld intensified.
A particularly disappointing part of the report focuses on the funding of prevention, care and control, which is expected to total $ 4.8 billion in 2013 for 104 countries with 94% of cases. But these low- and middle-income and need as much as $ 3 billion more each year to effectively meet their TB epidemics. "We are facing actually the main financial risks in a scenario where efficient technologies are now available," Raviglione said. Although he acknowledged that large increases in funding from governments and multinational organizations such as the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the financial deficit "means millions of unnecessary gaps in the coming years. "" history teaches us that in the fight against tuberculosis, collect achievements we have had so far as "done" is an absolutely fatal error. "
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