The world can eradicate tuberculosis by 2045, if the fight against the deadly disease will be properly funded, said the group of international experts. According to them, the inaction will result in huge economic and social costs, and the world needs to improve screening, treatment and public awareness to reduce more than 10 million cases are recorded annually.
How to win TB?
Tuberculosis is a chronic lung disease that is preventable and can be cured in case of timely detection, but it annually kills more than 1.6 million people.
“This is a huge problem and economic burden for both developing and developed countries,” says Eric Goosby, special envoy of the United Nations on this problem. “It’s not rocket science, it’s just common sense. We need to start a new strategy of prevention.”
Tuberculosis has existed for millennia and is hidden about a quarter of the world population.
Despite the fact that every year it kills almost as many people as HIV and malaria combined, commercially available vaccine against tuberculosis is not.
The study of this disease is allocated 10 times less funding than AIDS.
A group of experts from 13 countries stated that the financing of research and development is expected to increase four times to about $ 3 billion a year to fight correctly held.
In India alone, where a third of the deaths from tuberculosis in the world, providing the best access to treatment and screening of the target populations at risk of disease, can reduce mortality by almost a third, with annual costs at $ 290 million.
“The main thing is that we need much more new research and new tools,” says Paula Fujiwara, scientific Director, International Union against tuberculosis and lung disease. “Even if you use the tools that we have today, this will not be enough. The goal is to put an end to the TB, but the current decline is only 1.5-2 percent a year.”
The fight against tuberculosis
A few of the breakthroughs that have happened in recent months, patients are given hope. In October a new treatment resistant strains of TB cured 80% of patients in Belarus. Since then, the same treatment was repeated in other countries and the results were similar.
Months previously, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has released a study showing that a new vaccine was effective in 54% of study participants. In parallel with this, doctors say new testing methods can help to reduce the number of deaths of children under five years caused by tuberculosis.
In the Lancet study reported that the reduction in mortality from tuberculosis to less than 200,000 people per year will cost about $ 10 billion a year. However, you will need new medicines.
Maybe by 2045 we will be able to overcome this disease once and for all. If the time to do it. Have a story to tell about TB? Tell us in our chat in Telegram.