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UN chief highlights importance of fighting against tuberculosis, touting achievement

Xinhua, March 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said the fight against tuberculosis (TB) is "only half-won," though 43 million lives have been saved since the year 2000.

Ban made the remarks here in a message delivered on World Tuberculosis Day which falls on Thursday.

Marked on March 24 each year, World Tuberculosis Day brings attention to the disease that will affect more than 9.6 million men, women and children, and kill 1.5 million people in 2016 alone.

"TB disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable, the socially marginalized and those lacking access to basic health services," said Ban.

Tackling the disease is one of the targets for the UN's new Sustainable Development Goals, which all UN member states have agreed to aim to achieve by the year 2030. Alongside HIV/AIDS and malaria, TB remains one of the key diseases of global public health concern.

Ban said that the task ahead of ending TB is daunting, not least because "drug-resistant TB poses a major global health risk."

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), drug resistance arises due to improper use of antibiotics to treat TB and usually happens in areas with weak TB control programs. Once a person has a strain of drug-resistant TB they can then spread this form of TB to other individuals. Endit