TB is an airborne disease that usually affects the lungs. You get it by breathing. A World Health Organization official called it "Ebola with wings."
Many people think that TB is a disease of the past ~ an illness, like smallpox, that no longer threatens us today. However, one third of the world’s population is estimated to be infected with the bacteria.
On average, one person dies of TB every 15 seconds. Every day, 20,000 people develop TB disease and 5,000 die.
TB kills 2 million people every year. More people will die of TB this year than in any year in history.
With complacency and neglect, this totally preventable problem has become the largest cause of death of any single infectious disease.
The World Health Organization considers airplane flights over 8 hours a risk for transmitting TB.
Each person with TB infects up to 20 others before he or she is treated or dies.
TB is the leading infectious disease killer of adults, usually in their most productive years between 15 and 54.
Every TB death is unnecessary. TB is preventable and curable. When treated with appropriate antibiotics, more than 90 percent of TB patients can be cured.
Poor treatment of TB leads to multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), which if not fatal, requires up to two years of very expensive treatment with often toxic drugs. Multi-drug resistant TB has already been found in 43 states, the District of Columbia, and most countries in the world.
TB and AIDS are deadly twins. TB promotes progression of AIDS and AIDS promotes progression of TB. TB is the leading cause of death in people with AIDS.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $82.9 million February 12, 04, to a Bethesda foundation to launch broad new tests of potential vaccines against TB, one of the most ambitious steps ever to tackle a disease that kills 1.6 million people in poor countries every year.
