China says TB project helped avoid 770,000 deaths
China, Jan 22, 2010
A project jointly run by China's Ministry of Health (MoH), the World Bank and Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) has prevented 20 million people from getting infected with tuberculosis (TB) and has avoided some 770,000 deaths over the past eight years, Xinhua news agency reported. The project reportedly covered some 670 million Chinese, almost half of China's population. The three groups held a meeting in Beijing, China on Wednesday (January 21) to review results while identifying challenges for the future, Xinhua reported. Yu Dezhi, an MoH official, said that the project had provided free diagnosis and treatment to 1.84 million smear positive TB patients, with 1.39 million cured. "It's estimated that 770,000 deaths from tuberculosis were avoided thanks to the project, and 20 million people were prevented from getting infected with TB bacteria," Xinhua quoted Yu as saying. According to Xinhua, in 2009, TB patients in China were estimated at 4.5 million, the world's second largest after India. Experts said the project was successful largely due to directly observed therapy short course, or DOTS, that was implemented in 16 project provinces, by which patients take TB drugs under direct supervision of doctors, according to Xinhua. "This practice boosts patients' adherence to TB therapy, which is key to preventing the infection from developing into drug-resistant TB," Xinhua quoted Zhao Genming, a Fudan University professor in public health who led a third-party assessment of the project. According to Xinhua, the report identified remaining challenges, such as multi-drug resistant TB burden, TB prevalence among the migrant population and co-infection of TB and HIV. Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that affects the lungs, but can also harm the brain, kidneys or spine, and is one of the oldest known diseases. It is widely transmitted among the poor in developing regions.
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