Two million Chinese people could be saved from tuberculosis and
more will be free of infection in the next seven years thanks to a
TB control program jointly launched by China, Britain and the
World Bank.
The program, mainly financed by a US$104 million loan from the
World Bank, will offer free diagnosis and treatment of TB in 16 of
China's 31 provinces, home to 680 million people.
Through its Department for International Development, the British
government will also provide a grant of US$37 million to China to
help lower the interest rate on the Bank's 20-year loan.
Chinese governments at central and local levels will be responsible
for providing necessary funds, implementing programs, and the work
of personnel training and health education among the public.
It
is an important part of global efforts of TB control, Katherine
Sierra, Vice-President of the World Bank, said at a ceremony to
launch the program in Beijing on Sunday, the annual World TB
Day.
Current situation of TB in China
With five million tuberculosis sufferers, China ranked second only
to India worldwide in terms of serious TB epidemics.
Among the infected, two million have active tuberculosis, and run a
high risk of spreading the TB bacillus to healthy people through
daily contact. At least 120,000 Chinese die from tuberculosis every
year.
The World Bank has helped China since 1991 to expand effective TB
control services in 13 Chinese provinces. More than 1.6 million
patients had been diagnosed and treated by the end of 2000.
The project was cited by the World Health Organization
as one of the most successful TB control interventions in the
world, with patient cure rates surpassing 90 percent.
Research has also shown that the application of the WHO-recommended
TB control approach, DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short
Course), in China has been associated with at least a 46 percent
reduction in the expected deaths in the counties covered, said a
World Bank document.
China's fight against TB
"However, many of the gains of these efforts would have been lost
if the government did not provide adequate resources to continue
and expand the program after Bank financing concludes in mid-2002,"
it said.
Nearly 80 percent of the country's TB patients live in rural areas,
where poor living conditions, underlying health and nutritional
status, insufficient money to pay for health care, and lack of
knowledge about TB could make the situation worse, Chinese health
officials fear.
Without government funding, user charges have prevented patients
from being diagnosed early and getting treatment, thereby
increasing risks of transmission and death, and the development of
drug resistance, they warned.
China itself has begun a national plan to cover 95 percent of its
counties with the DOTS strategy, with the aim to treat four million
TB patients by 2010.
International cooperation and external support would also be very
important to China's fight against TB, China's Vice-Health Minister
Huang Jiefu said at an early ceremony to launch a TB control
program between China and Japan.
The Japanese government donated US$2 million worth of anti-TB drugs
and microscopes for bacillus detection to China on March 11, which
would be delivered to poor rural areas in 11 Chinese provinces.
(
March 25, 2002)