At the special node of World tuberculosis Day on March 24 in Geneva, the relevant agencies of the United Nations issued a strong appeal: tuberculosis, as the leading cause of death in the field of global infectious diseases, is in urgent need of "unprecedented bold action" if it is to be completely eliminated.
The theme of this year's World Day against tuberculosis focuses on "giving play to leadership and ending tuberculosis". The data provided by the World Health Organization is shocking: every day, tuberculosis mercilessly kills more than 4500 people. Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis and spread mainly through the respiratory tract. Bacteria will scatter around with the droplets produced by patients' coughing and sneezing, and then invade multiple important organs such as the lungs, stomach, and liver of the human body, causing a series of serious diseases. Although tuberculosis ranks among the top ten causes of death in the world, it is fortunate that it is a disease that can be prevented and treated.
From 2000 to 2016, the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis around the world achieved remarkable results, saving about 53 million lives. However, the epidemic data in 2016 is still not optimistic: the number of tuberculosis patients in the world is about 10.4 million, and the number of deaths due to tuberculosis is up to 1.7 million, and more than 95% of these deaths are concentrated in low - and middle-income countries.
At present, the situation of prevention and control of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is particularly grim. Some tuberculosis bacilli have developed resistance to multiple antibiotics, making the treatment process extremely difficult. According to statistics, in 2016, about 490000 people worldwide were infected with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. In addition, there is a close relationship between tuberculosis and AIDS, which is one of the main lethal factors for people infected with AIDS virus. The probability of AIDS virus infected people developing into active tuberculosis patients is 20 to 30 times higher than that of people not infected with AIDS virus. The superposition of the two diseases will lead to rapid deterioration of the disease. In 2016, 40% of the deaths of people infected with AIDS virus worldwide actually died of tuberculosis.
Michelle Sidibe, Executive Director of the United Nations Programme on AIDS, solemnly appeals to all countries to strengthen their political commitment and actively take national action to avoid the adverse situation of tuberculosis and AIDS. In the press release issued on its official website, the United Nations stressed: "The United Nations calls on all partners to take unprecedented bold action and work together to achieve the ambitious goal of eliminating tuberculosis and AIDS by 2030."
As early as November 2017, the World Health Organization successfully held the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending tuberculosis in Moscow, Russia. Officials from 75 countries and regions around the world reached an important consensus on taking more effective actions to end tuberculosis by 2030. In the second half of this year, the United Nations General Assembly will also hold a high-level meeting on tuberculosis for the first time, which aims to mobilize multi sectoral collaborative participation from the political level to fully promote the elimination of tuberculosis.
(Editer：admin)
