WHO to announce African tuberculosis emergency

The World Health Organisation is poised to announce a regional emergency over levels of tuberculosis throughout Africa.

African health ministers and WHO officials met in Mozambique this week to discuss how to halt the spread of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa.

By declaring the rising rates of TB infection to be an emergency, it is hoped to unlock extra money from the G8 nations, the US and the Global Fund, which helps developing countries fight diseases.

Rates of tuberculosis are rising alarmingly fast in Africa, where it is linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

HIV weakens the immune system and makes sufferers more susceptible to infectious diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia, which they cannot then afford to treat.

Tuberculosis is now believed to be single biggest killer of adults and young people in the world today and accounts for one third of AIDS-related deaths. In Africa, it kills over half a million people a year.

Most strains of tuberculosis can be treated with a six-month course of antibiotics, but many African sufferers have no access to medical care or medication.

The most common vaccination used in the West, the BCG, has also been found to be ineffective in countries near the Equator.

WHO's director general, Lee Jong-wook, said that the provision of anti-retroviral drugs was a key part of his strategy to fight both HIV and tuberculosis.

He said: "It has to go on. I hope that in five years time everybody will have access to these medicines."

Tuberculosis declined dramatically in Europe and the US in the 20th century after a sustained programme of public education and mass chest X-rays of school children, but it has begun to rise again through the spread of AIDS and increased air travel between developing and developed countries.

Scientists are also worried about the emergence of new strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to current drugs.

- THE INDEPENDENT