Describe the global issue of TB and the impact it has on the health Assignment

Describe the global issue of TB and the impact it has on the health system of the most affected region - Assignment Example It is third biggest cause of death, after HIV/AIDS and ischemic heart disease in the age group of 15-59 years. There are many undeniable reasons to urgently improve TB control. While millions of people transverse countries and continents every day by crossing borders, global security is at stake. Introduction Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne, potentially fatal infectious disease, acquiring pandemic proportion affecting almost all countries, is indeed a major global health concern. A third of the world’s population carries latent TB infection, which can appear at any time as symptomatic and at times life threatening disease when the immune systems of the infected persons are compromised. While many will never become ill, those who get are often suffer due to inadequate and incomplete treatment with an undesirable outcome because of their vulnerable and fragile health systems. A major cause of death, TB ranks as the eighth leading cause of death in low and middle income countrie s. It is third biggest cause of death, after HIV/AIDS and ischemic heart disease in the age group of 15-59 years (Lopez et al. 2006). TB, generally, is a curable disease; people with drug-sensitive type can be cured in six months. However, treatment of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) that are resistant to isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most important first-line drugs used in treatment of TB, is really challenging. There is around 0.4–0.5 million cases of MDR-TB each year. It requires use of second-line drugs that are costlier with severe side-effects, and treatment has to continue for longer period may be up to two years. Even then prognosis is not always very good for, with success rate of 50% to 70% (WHO 2010). Countries most affected by TB and populations most at risk According to the WHO (2010) each year, there are around 9 million new cases of TB, and about 2 million deaths due to TB infection. Almost every country of the world is affected by the TB, however, most cas es (85%) occur in Asia (55%), and Africa (30%) with India and China alone account for 35% of all cases. Of all the world’s TB cases, 80% of the cases are reported from 22 countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe), which are known as high-burden countries (HBCs) and have been given special attention in TB control (WHO 2010). Patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, TB infection is more fatal though such incidence is low, just over 10% of the TB cases that occur each year are among people living with HIV. Africa alone has 80% of such cases. The HIV epidemic caused a major rise in TB cases in Africa during the 1980s and 1990s with highest numbers reached in 2004, and have since begun to decline. There were around 1.3 million deaths fr om TB among HIV-negative people and around 0.4 million deaths from TB among HIV-positive people in 2009 (WHO 2010). TB is not restricted to low and middle income countries; it has affected the United States as well. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s (2010) report in 2010, a total of 11,181 (a rate of 3.6 cases per 100,000 population) tuberculosis (TB) cases were reported in the United States which was a