Health authorities in Britain have launched a $17.4m plan to tackle the country's persistent tuberculosis (TB) problem, seeking to wipe the contagious lung disease out altogether. TB rates in Britain are nearly five times those in the US. And, says a Reuters Health report, if current trends continue, England alone will have more TB cases than the whole of the US in two years.
"TB should be consigned to the past, and yet it is occurring in England at higher rates than most of Western Europe," said Paul Cosford, a director at the government's health agency, Public Health England (PHE). "This situation must be reversed." Often thought of as a disease of the past, when it was dubbed "the white plague" for rendering its victims pale and feverish, TB has stubbornly persisted in Britain. It occurs mainly in areas of poverty and deprivation.
In 2013, 7,290 TB cases were reported in England, an incidence of 13.5 cases per 100,000 of the population. Drug resistant TB is also an increasing problem, with cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB rising from 28 cases in England in 2000, to 68 in 2013.
PHE's plan is to work with the National Health Service (NHS) to target the most vulnerable people, improving access to screening, testing and treatment services as well as outreach programs such as "Find and Treat" mobile health units.
[link url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/us-health-tuberculosis-britain-idUSKBN0KS00120150119"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]