The spread of tuberculosis has been
brought to our attention by WHO (The World Health Organization) the recent
numbers for deaths in 2012 is 1.3 billion people. According to the article, the amount of
people dying from TB is almost 100,000 down from the previous year, but still
it affects a lot of people. The article also said that 8.6 million people last
year were infected with TB, 100,000 less than the previous year of 2011. Places TB occurs include China, India and
Africa, China accounted for 12 percent, India at 26 and over a quarter in
Africa. WHO launched initiatives in 1995
and were able to save 22 million lives and 56 million were treated. The main concern right now is that tuberculosis
is becoming multiple drug resistant and a new drug will not hit the market
until 2025.
However, three out of four drug
resistant cases of MDR-TB go undiagnosed.
A large amount of people in 2012 became ill from MDR-TB, about 450,000
and mostly in China, India and Russia.
MDR-TB alone killed 170,000 people last year. The other problem with TB is it requires 8
billion dollars to properly treat and contain a year in low and middle income
countries. How is this a social problem? This is affecting a large amount of
people in this world and is second to HIV/AIDS with toll of infectious
diseases.
The disease can become debilitating especially
in low-income and developing countries. It can become a drain to the health
systems, lessen the amount of people who can work, push people into further
poverty and leave children homeless. The
action that needs to be taken is costly, because information and care for TB
must be available in these rural, poor areas that often do not have clean water
to drink or food to eat. People continue to live in a cycle of poverty and
illness. The solution is to raise awareness around the world and charities or
more funding should be allotted for this cause, along with HIV/AIDS. These
diseases keep the low-income countries poor and in poverty, that and lack of
resources along with education.
10/24/2013
12:06 pm
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