ASIA/BANGLADESH - Sharp drop in tuberculosis rate, although disease remains very common among poor and illiterate

Dacca (Agenzia Fides) – The tuberculosis (TB) prevalence rate in Bangladesh has plummeted to 79 per 100,000 people from 800 in the 1990s, with the majority of cases among the rural, poor and uneducated, according to the Nationwide Tuberculosis Disease-cum-Infection Prevalence Survey 2007-09. The association between poverty and TB is well recognized, and the highest rates of TB are found in the poorest section of the community," said K Zaman, an epidemiologist with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICCDR, B), who led the survey with the National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP). In 2009, 109,311 new smear-positive cases - when TB bacteria is found in a patient's sample of mucus or phlegm - were detected, compared with 38,457 in 2000, indicating a high detection rate. Bangladesh ranks sixth among countries with the highest burden TB in the world, with 300,000 new cases and 70,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Most affected are the poor and uneducated: in rural areas, 86 adults in every 100,000 suffer from TB, against 51 in urban areas; 159.7 per 100,000 are among those who earn less than US$43 a month, against 45.7 among those who earn more than $143 a month; and 138.6 per 100,000 among those with no education, compared with 39.3 among people with a secondary education. However, the government has expanded care across the country, with 1,050 DOTS centres at the sub-district level where TB treatment is free. Bangladesh has achieved the Millennium Development Goal for 70 percent case detection and an 85 percent cure rate. (Agenzia Fides 08/03/2010)