At last week’s 45th World Conference on Lung Health in Barcelona, Spain, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and World Diabetes Foundation jointly issued a call to action against a global co-epidemic of diabetes mellitus and tuberculosis. DM-TB embodies the sort of challenge we will increasingly face in the post-2015 development era. It’s also a challenge that our community and the global health system at large are — at present — not adequately positioned to solve. TB kills more people each year than any other infectious disease except HIV and AIDS. TB stole 1.5 million lives last year according to new data recently reported by the World Health Organization. There are also two billion people living with a latent TB infection — one person in three worldwide. People living with latent tuberculosis have no symptoms and in fact aren’t sick. However, latent TB can progress into infectious TB disease at any point in one’s lifetime — even decades after exposure. When we consider the source for future cases of tuberculosis, this pool of latent infection comprises a wellspring of stupefying proportions. Now, consider diabetes. Diabetes is skyrocketing and is projected to rise from about 400 million people living with the disease today to 592 million by 2035. At the same time, its global distribution is shifting from predominantly high-income developed countries into developing countries.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 09:12:21 +0000
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