Fighting killer cough

• TB is contagious and spreads through the air
• If untreated, each person with active TB infects 10-15 people every year
• 2 billion people or one third of the world's population are infected with TB
• 1 person is infected with TB every second
• TB kills 4400 people every day
• 1.7 million people died from TB in 2006
• There were 9.2 million new cases cases of TB in 2006
• MDR-TB is difficult and expensive to treat and fails to respond to standard first line drugs
• Every year, an estimated 4.9 lakh new MDR-TB cases occur causing 1.3 lakh deaths.
• 5% of all new cases are MDR in India
• India has 3.8 million TB patients at any time
• India records 18 lakh new cases of TB annually
• Over 6 lakh Indians are unaware that they suffer from TB
• India saw TB case detection rates increase by 10%-12% between 2001-05
• It fell to 5% in 2006.

courtesy :- The Times of India (02-07-2008)

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