The world appears to be losing the fight against tuberculosis (TB), which kills around two million people a year, because it is using outdated drugs and diagnostic tests. The main diagnostic test for TB was invented in the 19th century and has only a 50 percent success rate in detecting patients who also have HIV/AIDS, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). MSF, founded in 1971, delivers emergency aid to victims of armed conflict, epidemics, and natural and man-made disasters, and to others who lack health care due to social or geographical isolation. It was the first non-governmental organisation to both provide emergency medical assistance and publicly bear witness to the plight of the populations they served. TB in India:
  • India has one third of all TB patients in the world
  • 40% of the Indian population is infected with TB bacillus
  • Each day, 20,000 get infected and 5,000 develop the disease
  • Each year 18 lakh people develop TB, of whom 8 Lakh are infectious
  • More women die of TB than all causes of maternal mortality put together
They said that money is urgently needed for new medicines and more efficient ways of detecting the infectious disease, which is staging a comeback even in developed countries. The doctors feel that they are losing the battle against tuberculosis because archaic diagnostic tests and drugs are relied upon. TB infects nine million people a year and causes coughing, fever, sweating and loss of appetite and weight. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched its DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course) strategy for TB a decade ago. The program focuses on improving patient surveillance and drug treatment. But its task has been complicated by the fact that tuberculosis is one of the main opportunistic infections in HIV/AIDS patients. When TB occurs along with HIV/AIDS, the combination severely reduces the effectiveness of the main diagnostic test, the sputum smear microscopy test, MSF said. A growing number of TB patients worldwide also have HIV/AIDS, but the current diagnostic tool can only detect TB in 50 percent of HIV patients, even in a well-run TB programme. Furthermore, the success of first-line drugs, many of which are 50 years to 60 years old, depend on a patient sticking rigorously with treatment for six months to eight months.

MSF on Tuberculosis,
March 2004