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TB poses threat to development, says World Bank

Our Bureau

MUMBAI, March 24

THE World Bank has urged the international community to push for greater tuberculosis (TB) control in its efforts to reduce poverty and promote development.

With about 95 per cent of the 20 million people ill with TB today living in the developing world, and effective tools available to combat the worsening epidemic, investing in TB control programmes makes economic and development sense, according to the Wo rld Bank vice-president for South Asia region.

Given the spread of drug-resistant disease and TB's resurgence in many parts of the world, the World Bank warned that traditional methods are no longer enough to compensate for the economic and social damage that this killer of nearly two million people a year causes.

TB and poverty are closely linked even as poor living conditions stimulate transmission of the disease that exacerbates economic and social distress, the World Bank observed in a conference on tuberculosis and sustainable development.