China's Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday, the day
before World TB Day, that about 550,000 people with infectious
pulmonary tuberculosis were treated free of charge by the
government in 2004.
"If one infectious pulmonary TB patient infects 10 to 15 healthy
people, free treatment kept six million Chinese safe from TB last
year," said Qi Xiaoqiu, director-general of the health ministry's
disease control department.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported last July that each
year China has 1.4 million new tuberculosis cases, second only to
India in the number of new cases, and 650,000 of which are highly
infectious.
China estimates that there are about 4.5 million sufferers in
the country, but according to the WHO the detection rate, while
markedly improved, is still only about 40 percent.
In 2001, the Chinese government allocated 40 million yuan
(US$4.9 million) annually to provide free treatment to infectious
pulmonary TB patients. Last year, the central government increased
the budget to 300 million yuan.
"With the additional financial input, we are able to provide
free treatment to all active pulmonary TB patients," Qi said.
Qi said China's goal is to have nationwide access by the end of
this year to the WHO recommended TB control strategy, known as
DOTS, which has a 90 percent recovery rate and a 70 percent
detection rate.
One of the nation's Millennium Development Goals is to halve TB
prevalence by 2015.
"China will continue to enhance all the preventative and control
measures to curb the spread of TB in China and fulfill its promise
to the international community," he said.
Tuberculosis is spread by coughing, sneezing, spitting and even
talking. Each year about 2 million people worldwide die from this
curable disease. It kills more young people and adults than any
other infectious disease and is the world's biggest killer of
women.
Nearly nine million people develop the disease annually, the
vast majority of them in developing countries, where 99 percent of
all TB deaths occur. According to the WHO, TB infection is
currently spreading at the rate of one person per second.
About one-third of the world's population, or around 2 billion
people, carry the TB bacteria but only about 10 percent develop the
active disease.
The focus of this year's World TB Day is frontline TB care
providers, including grassroots-level public health staff, lab
technicians, nongovernmental organizations, community groups,
nurses, private medical practitioners, pharmacists, shopkeepers,
students and patient activists.
(China.org.cn, Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2005)