India should join global anti-TB plan: WB study

WASHINGTON: Countries like India and China, with high numbers of TB cases could gain more from the money they spend on diagnosis and treatment of the disease if they joined a global plan to sharply reduce the numbers of Tuberculosis-related deaths, a World Bank study has said.

The economic impact of TB deaths and the benefits of TB control among 22 high-burden countries are greatest in China and India, where the combination of growing incomes and a relatively high number of TB deaths translates into a significant economic effect, according to the 'The Economic Benefit of Global Investments in Tuberculosis Control'.

The study says that despite recent gains in fighting Tuberculosis, there were still 8.8 million new cases and 1.6 million deaths from the disease in 2005. Without treatment, two-thirds of smear-positive cases die within five to eight years, with most dying within 18 months of being infected.

Highly affected African countries could also gain up to nine times their investments in TB control with the study warning about the need to step-up TB control worldwide with the growing emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) in Southern Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The study, commissioned by the WB on behalf of the Stop TB Partnership and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has attracted considerable interest from international health and development agencies, along with research and civil society groups, which want more aggressive TB control worldwide. The disease is the leading infectious killer after HIV/AIDS.