Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Monday November 24, 2003
Patricia Reaney
London has the highest incidence of the illness of any region in England and Wales. In some parts of the city the number of new cases has increased fourfold in the last decade.
"While rates of infection have flattened out or dipped across the rest of the country, increasing numbers of Londoners are contracting the disease," Elizabeth Howlett, chair of the London Assembly Health Committee, said in the report.
The illness is putting new pressures on the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) and other agencies and drug resistant strains of the illness are increasing the cost of treating it.
"TB is killing more people worldwide than ever before," Howlett added.
While TB had declined in many industrialized countries since the 1980s, before its resurgence, it had persisted in developing nations. Strains resistant to anti-TB drugs have taken hold in China, India, Africa and the former Soviet Union.
The disease destroys the lungs and causes death through asphyxiation. It is spread by an infectious person coughing and sneezing in confined spaces. Although it can be treated with antibiotics, TB kills an estimated two million people around the globe every year. Eight million new cases are reported annually.
Population growth, worldwide travel, multi-drug resistant TB and HIV, which causes AIDS, have contributed to the rise in the illness.
TB is leading cause of death among HIV-positive people.
The report calls for greater cooperation between government agencies, non-health public services and local authorities to combat the spread of the illness in London, which has a population of 7.4 million people, is one of the world's global trade centers and is a popular tourist destination with 13.1 million visitors each year.
But it argued against screening people as they arrive in the country, saying it would be ineffective.
"Far more effective, this report argues, is carrying out health checks in people's own communities, ensuring that agencies work together to tackle not only the medical but also the social aspects of TB and raising public awareness of the disease," Howlett said.
In 1993 the World Health Organization declared TB a global health emergency.
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