TB DISEASE PER REGION OF THE WORLD

TUBERCULOSIS (TB)

According to the statistics of the WHO, TB kills more young people and adults than any other infectious disease in the world. It causes more deaths than AIDS and Malaria combined. Although the use of penicillin and antibiotics have caused the decline of this disease in some countries, hot spots of this illness still exist in eastern Europe, south east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.



Numbers that were seemingly beginning to decrease began to rise in the 1980’s with the emergence of Aids. Scientists now say that the number of people with TB around the world has reached a ten year high.
In the developed world this disease is primarily seen in the elderly, while in developing countries it is more commonly seen in young adults.
Each person, left untreated with active TB will infect on the average between 10 and 15 people a year. The difficult issue, however, is that not everyone who infected with TB actually develops symptoms, and therefore TB testing is required to figure out who is infected especially since this disease can lie dormant for years.

• Someone in the world is infected with TB every second.
• One third of the world’s population is currently infected with TB.
• 5-10% of people who are infected with TB (but who are not infected with HIV) become sick or infectious at some time in their life. People who have HIV in conjunction with TB are more likely to develop the symptoms of TB.

TB DISEASE PER REGION OF THE WORLD

World Region	Number Thousands	% Of Global Total	TB Mortality Per 100,000 Of Population
Africa	2,529	29%	74.0
The Americas	352	4%	5.5
Eastern Mediterranean	565	6%	21.0
Europe	445	5%	7.4
South East Asia	2,993	34%	31.0
Western Pacific	1,927	22%	17.0
Global	8,811	100%	24.0

The goal of the WHO at this time is to reduce the number of cases of active TB, by using advance screening methods and treatments programs. One thing is clear; the interaction of TB and HIV together is causing a major problem in effectively warding off this disease. The reason for this seems to be the decreased immunity of HIV compromised individuals combining with the TB virus to form a deadly combination and in regions of a combined endemic situation with both of these diseases present as in parts of Africa, it has become increasingly evident that these two diseases together make the effects much more devastating.

• Tuberculosis (TB) is contagious and airborne. It is a disease of poverty affecting mostly young adults in their most productive years. The vast majority of TB deaths are in the developing world
  
• 1.7 million people died from TB (including 380 000 women) in 2009, including 380 000 people with HIV, equal to 4700 deaths a day
  
• The TB death rate has fallen by 35% since 1990, and the number of deaths is also declining
  
• TB is among the three greatest causes of death among women aged 15-44
  
• There were 9.4 million new TB cases (including 3.3 million women) in 2009, including 1.1 million cases among people with HIV
  
• The estimated global incidence rate fell to 137 cases per 100 000 population in 2009, after peaking in 2004 at 142 cases per 100 000. The rate is still falling but too slowly
  
• Globally, the percentage of people successfully treated reached the highest level at 86% in 2008
  
• Since 1995, 41 million people have been successfully treated and up to 6 million lives saved through DOTS and the Stop TB Strategy. 5.8 million TB cases were notified through DOTS programmes in 2009
  
• Of the 22 TB high burden countries, 13 countries are on track to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goal target and 12 countries are on track to reach the 2015 Stop TB Partnership targets
  
• 1.6 million TB patients knew their HIV status in 2009 compared to 1.4 million in 2008 with the highest HIV testing rates of TB patients in Europe (86%) Africa (53%) and the Americas (41%). In 55 countries, including 16 in Africa, at least 75% of TB patients knew their HIV status
  
• 37% of HIV-positive TB patients were enrolled on antiretrovirals and 75% started on cotrimoxazole preventive treatment in 2009
  
• Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is a form of TB that is difficult and expensive to treat and fails to respond to standard first-line drugs
  
• There were an estimated 440 000 new MDR-TB cases in 2008, and 150 000 deaths from MDR-TB
  
• It was estimated that in 2009, 3.3% of all new TB cases had MDR-TB
  
• In 2010, the largest WHO MDR-TB survey reported the highest rates ever of MDR-TB, with peaks of up to 28% of new TB cases in some settings of the former Soviet Union
  
• Many countries have developed plans to address MDR-TB, but the response globally is still insufficient
  
• Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) occurs when resistance to second-line drugs develops on top of MDR-TB
  
• XDR-TB cases have been confirmed in 58 countries