Title: DOTS still only reaching 27% of tuberculosis patients.

POPLINE Document Number: 168856

Source citation:

Africa Health, 2002 May;24(4):6.

Abstract:

According to a new WHO Report, the internationally recommended directly observed treatment, short course strategy is reaching only 27% of the world's tuberculosis (TB) patients. Public health officials estimate that $1 billion a year will be needed to treat patients and control the TB epidemic in 22 countries that account for 80% of the world's TB burden. WHO found that surprisingly the governments of these 22 low-income nations are already paying 70% of the cost of treatment and control of the disease. The Global fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria has failed to raise the significant funding that it was mandated to find. Moreover, veterinary scientists in Britain have announced a breakthrough in the search for a TB vaccine. The scientists discovered after sequencing the entire genome of the organism causing bovine TB that humans originally gave animals TB, rather the other way around as had been supposed. The discovery meant that a vaccine being developed to save cattle from TB would probably work on humans as the human and bovine forms of the disease are 99.9% identical.

Keywords:

WHO
UN
International Agencies
Organizations