JAKARTA, Nov 29, 2006 (AFP) - The United Nations Wednesday called for concerted action to tackle tuberculosis which kills more than one million people every year in Asia and is also a major cause of death for those with HIV/AIDS.
Jorge Sampaio, UN special envoy to stop TB, stressed that the disease remained a major problem despite the common perception that it was a thing of the past.
"We are dealing with a disease or a pandemic which kills around 5,000 people every day and the striking point is that TB is a curable disease and this of course is something that we have to have in mind because it stimulates us" to act, the former Portuguese president said at a meeting here of leading international health officials.
Asia is the region worst affected by the infectious bacterial disease which most commonly affects the lungs.
"There is a huge burden of TB in the Asian region, I mean by this Southeast Asia, Western Pacific, Afghanistan and Pakistan, altogether make around 60 percent of the world's burden," Sampaio said.
"The Asia-Pacific region alone is home to nearly nine million people with TB, with Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan accounting for half of the global burden of TB."
Besides being a health problem, he pointed out that TB also threatened economic progress in Asia.
"We should not allow TB to disrupt the social and economic progress of the people and countries of Asia.
"Through collective will and support we must stop TB from depleting household incomes and national incomes and trapping Asia's poor in a vicious cycle of disease and poverty," he said.
HIV and the emergence of drug-resistant strains have been adding to the already heavy burden of TB in Asia.
People whose immune systems have been weakened by HIV are particularly easy prey for tuberculosis.
According to the World Health Organisation, about 40 to 50 percent of the nearly six million adults living with HIV are likely to be infected with TB.
"Those living with HIV are of course in a state which obviously is much more open to getting the disease of TB," Sampaio said.
Irene Koek, chairwoman of the Stop TB Partnership Coordinating Board, stressed that there were effective treatments for the disease.
"It is treatable, it is curable, it is preventable and we can control it and ultimately eliminate TB. But to do that will take the efforts of all of us," she said.
The regional partners for TB control urged governments to support the call for concerted action to stop the disease in Asia.
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