Fuente : World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org

Africa To Announce TB Emergency

/noticias.info/ Health Ministers from across Africa are currently meeting in Mozambique for the 55th meeting of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional committee to discuss the growing numbers of tuberculosis (TB) cases across the region, the online edition of BBC News reports.

It is expected that the WHO will announce a regional tuberculosis health emergency. The AIDS epidemic is increasing the spread of TB, which affects people in their most productive years and kills some 1,500 Africans every day. TB rates are rising in both Africa and parts of Eastern Europe. Africa is particularly hit because of co-infections with HIV and a lack of health infrastructure to monitor and treat the disease. The WHO hopes that by making TB a regional health emergency, it will put the disease back on the agenda.

The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reports that WHO experts are calling upon African health ministers to declare a TB emergency on the continent. "If we don't consider [TB] an emergency, we won't achieve the Millennium Development Goals," which call for halting or reversing incidence of major epidemics by 2015, said Mario Raviglione, director of the Stop TB department at WHO. However, he said that there is no guarantee the 48 African health ministers will approve a draft resolution in a Friday vote.

The WHO estimates there are 2.4 million new tuberculosis cases globally each year and about 1.8 million deaths, said Raviglione. TB growth rates have slowed to one percent a year world-wide. But the epidemic is "essentially out of control" and growing at a five percent annual rate in the hardest-hit African countries. Wilfred Nkhoma, the WHO's regional adviser for Africa, said nine African countries are among the 22 nations that constitute 80 percent of the world's new TB cases reported every year. They are: South Africa, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

TB control in Africa currently suffers from inadequate resources and outdated tools for diagnosis and treatment. Raviglione said the basic sputum test employed in much of Africa dates from a century ago, and some of the staple antibiotics were developed 30 to 40 years ago. To get ahead of the expanding TB epidemic, advocates are calling on developed nations to redouble investments in TB control over the next 10 years toward a total of $51 billion, including $7 billion to $8 billion in research and development for new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines.

Agence France Presse further reports that African health ministers also described a planned 30 percent increase in spending on their continent by the WHO as important, but insufficient given the massive problems to be faced. The WHO is to focus on malaria and AIDS in Africa with a budget increase to $949.5 million for 2006-2007, the organization's Africa director Luis Sambo said Tuesday. This would be the WHO’s largest regional budget increase in the world compared to 2004-2005. A report published during the meeting disclosed that Africa imports 90 percent of its medicines, and poor countries account for only 2.6 percent of world production.

Furthermore of the 4.4 million people in Africa living with HIV/AIDS about eight percent at most have access to antiretroviral drugs. Alone on the continent, South Africa carries out the whole cycle of production, from manufacturing the active agents to the finished product. "Drug production is an area which needs a lot of money and a lot of research," said Mozambican minister Ivo Garrido. "For that reason we need to attract foreign investment to build drug manufacturing plants in Africa." notas_de_prensa_archivo