A third of the world's 6.6 billion people are infected with TB

"A third of the world's 6.6 billion people are infected with TB..."

Click here to see the original article.
www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/story?id=4069429&page=1


"TB alone already has a profound impact on global health. Two million die of the disease every year, and nearly 9 million new active cases are diagnosed. TB can be cured with drugs that cost only $14-$18 per patient but may take six to nine months to work. And as a consequence of poor treatment, some strains of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis that causes TB no longer respond to treatment with the standard first-line drugs (see Antimicrobial Resistance Jeopardizes Medical Advancement). Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) has emerged in nearly every country in the world and accounts for 14 percent of all TB cases. The risk of MDR-TB is higher among HIV-infected persons than those who are not.

"HIV is also advancing rapidly: 40 million people worldwide were living with HIV at the end of 2005, 5 million more than in the previous year. Many infected with HIV develop TB as the first manifestation of AIDS, because HIV infection is the most potent risk factor for converting latent TB infection (which affects one-third of the world's population) to active disease or relapse in previously treated patients..."

Click here to see the original article.
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2006/IntersectingEpidemicsTuberculosisandHIV.aspx