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200 children die every day from Tuberculosis
WHO states that children are left out of progress in the fight against disease
EMILIO DE BENITO Madrid 22 MAR 2012 - 12:32 CET
Filed in: TB WHO International Organizations Diseases Medicine Health
About 200 children die every day because of tuberculosis. Although the impact of this infectious disease has declined in recent years (up to 40% less since 1990, according to World Health Organization ), children have not benefited equally from the advances. They are often underdiagnosed and poorly treated, the organization said on the occasion of the report published by the World Day against the disease which is celebrated on March 24.
It seems more a matter of priority that money. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of Stop TB program of WHO, states that "costs less than three cents [less in euros] to therapy for a child not ill, and 50 cents to treatment to cure it. It is unacceptable that one child dies of tuberculosis. "
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The problem is that TB is a disease of the poor. When diagnosed in a family member, do not test the rest. And besides, it is difficult to identify. "Most countries still determines infection with the same method as for 130 years," said WHO: looking under a microscope the bacillus in a sputum sample. And this system is complicated to carry out in many areas of the world.
The disease is a major health threats in the world, but not just the poorest. The Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC) points out that one third of the world population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and that between 5% and 10% develop the disease throughout his life. According to the annual report of the WHO Global Tuberculosis Control 2011 , an estimated "in 2010 worldwide were 8.8 million new cases of the disease and 1.4 million deaths directly related to the same" .
In Spain, although the number of cases has declined in recent years, the incidence rate is 15-20 cases per 100,000 population, depending on the autonomous region.
The decline is general throughout Europe, says the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC). But new threats have emerged: bacteria multiple or extremely resistant (MDR or XDR, for its acronym in English). The total cases in one year are down almost 3% to 309,648 in 2010. This continent posts fifth consecutive years of declines. However, of these, 13.2% are considered highly resistant strains (in 2009 it was 8.2%). This means that do not respond to most treatments. And these are not simple, since they involve months of medication. So leave the affected and there is the apparent paradox that Europe, where medication is relatively easy to achieve, have the highest rates of resistant bacteria in the world, has said the WHO director for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab.
But this year global tuberculosis also arrives with news, at least the medium term. One is the possibility of getting a vaccine against the bacteria. In this work Aeras, nonprofit scientific organization, which just received a contribution of $ 220 million (170 million euros) of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to its development over the next five years. An important figure, but that is about half of what the organization believes will need. Other approaches are better treatments, especially to the more resistant strains. In this line workers still in Phase II, that is, with few volunteers, the TB Alliance. The third leg of this approach is to simplify the diagnosis.