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Bill Gates addressesmeeting in Beijing about tuberculosis threat
Bill Gates addresses the meeting in Beijing about the tuberculosis threat. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
Bill Gates addresses the meeting in Beijing about the tuberculosis threat. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

Bill Gates joins Chinese government in tackling TB 'timebomb'

This article is more than 15 years old
Computer industry billionaire Bill Gates funds project to combat deadly new TB strains

The head of the World Health Organisation today warned that the spread of a new drug-resistant form of tuberculosis was a timebomb that could explode with devastating effect on human life and economic activity.

At a meeting to coordinate international counter-measures in Beijing, China, the WHO director-general, Margaret Chan, called on governments to strengthen healthcare and disease monitoring systems to counter the deadly new strains, which now account for 530,000 of the 9m annual cases of TB.

Most go unreported and many result in death because current treatments are increasingly ineffective.

"Call it what you may, a timebomb or a powder keg," Chan said at the opening of the three-day conference of health ministers.

"Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation."

In a sign of growing alarm, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined the Chinese government to announce a $33m (£23m) project to pioneer new forms of diagnosis and medication.

TB is a bacterial infection that predominantly attacks the lungs. It spreads through coughing, sneezing, speaking or kissing.

During the 20th century, health authorities made progress in controlling the disease but, in recent years, virulent new strains have emerged in poor countries in which antibiotics are often misused.

The most deadly strain is almost impossible to treat.

Chan said less than 5% of estimated cases of drug-resistant TB were being detected and fewer than 3% of sufferers received treatment that reached WHO standards.

Countries attending the meeting were expected to start drawing up five-year national plans to prevent and control the spread of drug-resistant TB.

"I urge you to make the right policy decisions with appropriate urgency," Chan told health ministers representing countries with more than 80% of the cases.

"At a time of economic downturn, the world simply cannot afford to let a threat of this magnitude, complexity and cost spiral out of control."

After India, China has the highest rate of multi-drug-resistant TB, which sufferers spread to 10 to 15 people per year on average.

Russia is also suffering because of healthcare shortages, while South Africa is vulnerable because the HIV-Aids epidemic has hit immunity systems.

Chinese doctors report that TB is becoming more virulent, although treatment is nominally free.

Earlier this week, Wang Maobo, the vice-director of the disease prevention and control centre of Yantai City, Shandong province, reported a steady increase in TB cases and high death rates, particularly among poor communities.

Computer industry billionaire Bill Gates said the Gates Foundation chose to fund the TB project in China because the scale of the problem was great and the government had the ability to set an example for the world.

"Because of its skill, its scale, its TB burden, its love of innovation and its political commitment to public health, China is a perfect laboratory for large-scale testing of new tools and delivery techniques to fight TB," Gates said at a news conference.

He said the project would initially cover 20 million people and then be expanded to 100 million over five years.

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