Tuberculosis Cases Have Declined Since 2005, WHO Reports
October 11, 2011, 11:44 AM EDTBy Simeon Bennett
(Updates with budget shortfall in fourth paragraph.)
Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The number of people who fell ill with tuberculosis dropped from 2005 to 2010, the World Health Organization said today in its first report to show a decline in cases of the world’s second-deadliest infectious killer.
New cases of the bacterial infection dropped to 8.8 million in 2010 from a peak of 9 million in 2005, the Geneva-based agency said in an e-mailed statement. Deaths from TB dropped to 1.4 million from 1.8 million in 2003, according to the agency.
“This is cause for celebration,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in the statement. “But it is no cause for complacency. Too many millions still develop TB each year, and too many die.”
A $1 billion shortfall in 2012 funding for fighting the disease threatens to undo progress as drug-resistant forms spread, the WHO said. Only about 16 percent of patients with multidrug-resistant TB were reported to have received treatment last year, according to the report.
AIDS is the world’s biggest infectious killer.
--Editors: Robert Valpuesta, Tom Lavell.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Geneva at sbennett9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net
