Tuberculosis infection rates as a global and local public health issue - Essay Example

To achieve this end, the partnership has undertaken a multi-faceted approach. The main mission objectives are to stop the spread of TB, to lessen the social and economical cost of TB, and to develop and implement new methods and ways to diagnose, prevent and treat TB. The partnership targets to reduce the occurrence and death rate of TB by 50% by the year 2015 relative to 1990 estimates. Another target is to have the world free from TB by the year 2050 (Actions for Life: Towards a world free of tuberculosis, 2006).

To achieve this dream, the Stop TB Partnership developed a Global Plan to Stop TB in the year 2006. The proper implementation is expected to save about 14 million lives, provide treatment for 50 million people, and offer better access to diagnosis and treatment for everyone. The Plan identifies the challenges in achieving this target and has developed seven working groups to address the challenges directly. The TB facts As per World Health Organisation reports, one-third of the world’s population is currently infected with TB bacillus bacteria.

According to reports, the number of people who died from TB in the year 2009 is 1.7 million. In addition, as Sharma and Mohan (2004) state, the estimates are that between 2002 and 2020, the number of newly infected people will be about 1,000 million and the number of tuberculosis deaths will be 36 million. As Ewbank and Gribble (1993), and National Research Council (US) Working Group on the Effects of Child Survival and General Health Programs on Morality observe, tuberculosis may be responsible for more deaths than any other single pathogen.

In addition, it is found that one-six of the tuberculosis infections happen in people who are infected with HIV (ibid). The WHO aims The World Health Organisation report ‘Global Tuberculosis Control (2010)’ identifies its major targets to reach its goal of 50% reduction of disease by 2015. The targets are diagnosis, notification and treatment of approximately 7 million cases, a 90% success rate in treatment, 100% detection of HIV in TB patients, providing co-trimoxazole preventive therapy to HIV positive TB patients, testing all previously treated TB patients for MDRTB, those who are identified with MDRTB are provided new treatment according to international guidelines, and to spend US$ 7 billion per year for the purpose, and an additional US$ 1.

3 billion on research and development (ibid). Challenges ahead Murray (2006), in American Medical Association, writes about the challenges of tuberculosis control in the present world. The problems identified are divided into five key areas: inefficient diagnostics and treatment, the need for expansion of the World Health Organisation Directly Observed Therapy, short course (DOTS) program, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB), and HIV co-infection (ibid). In addition, as Boogaard, Kibiki, Kisanga, Boeree, & Aarnoutse (2009) report, the existing diagnostic test- sputum microscopy- identifies only advanced pulmonary TB and the remaining cases go unidentified.

In addition, the DOTS strategy developed by World Health Organisation is expensive and labor-intensive, and hence less effective in developing nations (ibid). Now, taking the economic side of the disease into consideration, a study by Grimard and Harline prove that even a 10% fall in the