TUBERCULOSIS (TB) germs are working
quietly and speedily with single-minded
devotion to ensnare as many humans in
their killing net as possible. This is the
horrific future as revealed by the World
Health Organization (WHO)
on March 21 this year in
London, UK. Warning of a
new drug-resistant strain of
the disease, wHo states that
TB will kill 30 million-people in the next 10 years. TB
claimed a record three million lives worldwide last year.
This means that the
lung disease has become more of a serious threat than AIDS or
ebola. or malaria. Says Paul Nunn, chief
of research Of WHO's global TB programme, that in UK alone, there were
6,000 cases OfTB each year resulting in at
least 400 deaths, and the numbers were
growing. Sadly, though effective drugs
are in place, more often than not, these
are not consumed in the pattern prescribed. This leads to the
disease - the only one to
be described by WHO as a
global emergency - taking
a turn for the worse.
The world health body
is now looking towards the
drugs industry and governments to spend as much as
US $500 million a year to
prevent TB from becoming.
a global malady.
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