A global cooperation project to fight the spread of Multi-Drug
Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a serious international public
health threat, was started in Beijing on Friday.
The global effort will cover India, Russia and South Africa and
benefit from the expertise and resources of the World Health
Organization (WHO), the US Department of Health and Human Services'
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Brigham Women's
Hospital (BWH), an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. It is aimed
at increasing the number of trained personnel and drugs available
to confront the growing MDR-TB danger.
As
a partner of the project, the US-based Eli Lilly and Co. will
inject 560 million yuan (US$67 million) to check this potential
global health emergency, which includes the transfer of technology
to China and India to produce antibiotics to fight MDR-TB.
According to the WHO, roughly 400,000 new cases of MDR-TB are
reported in more than 100 countries each year. It is estimated that
the average MDR-TB patient infects up to 20 other people in his or
her lifetime.
In
China, approximately five million people have active TB, a leading
infectious cause of death, with an estimated 130,000 deaths per
year.
MDR-TB occurs during the initial stages of TB treatment in about
18.6 percent of patients. It is especially threatening because
potentially resistant strains can emerge for which there are
currently no effective treatments.
(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2003)