Over 117,000 Russians Diagnosed With TB In 2007 - Statistics

MOSCOW, March 24 (Itar-Tass) - During 2007 over
117,000 Russians were diagnosed with tuberculosis
and over 3,000 of them are children under 14, the
Federal Service on Surveillance for Consumer
Rights Protection and Human Well-being
(Rospotrebnadzor) told Itar-Tass on the eve of World TB Day.

"During 2007 active TB in Russia was revealed in
117,738 people, the disease incidence rate
reached 82.6 per 100,000 of the population," the
service officials specified. They noted that the
data are practically identical to the 2006 results.

The highest disease incidence, the same as
before, is registered in the Far East (132),
Siberia (127) and Urals (103.9). "However, in
rural areas the incidence was somewhat higher in
2007 - 90.06 per 100,000," the experts noted. The
share of those who died of tuberculosis among the
total number of people who died of infectious and
parasitic disease accounts for some 80-85 percent in the country
annually.

At the same time the specialists expressed
special concern over the non-declining incidence
of tuberculosis among children. "As many as 3,372
children under 14 contracted the disease last
year - 16.01 per 100,000 of children's population
(the same as in 2006)," the specialist stated.
"Among children under one year of age the disease
incidence is 7.21 per 100,000; among one-two
years of age - 15.51; among three-six year-old -
22.56; among 15-17-year old youngsters - 33.5 per 100,000 people," they
noted.

Russia's chief sanitary doctor and
Rospotrebnadzor head Gennady Onishchenko called
the lowering of the TB incidence rate a key task
of the agency's work in 2008. Its officials noted
that by the results of last year's inspection of
the fulfilment of legislation on the prevention
of the spread of tuberculosis, including
inspection of TB treatment facilities,
Rospotrebnadzor issued about 2,000 instructions
on the removal of exposed violations and imposed
some 2,000 fines worth 2,286,500 roubles; it took
to court 181 cases, issued 76 resolutions on
imposing an administrative fine worth 160,000
roubles and another 105 resolutions on the
suspension of activity. The materials of the
inspection were submitted to the Ministry of
Health and Social Development and the Prosecutor General's Office.

World Tuberculosis Day, falling on March 24th
each year, is designed to build public awareness
that tuberculosis today remains an epidemic in
much of the world, causing the deaths of about
1.6 million people each year, mostly in the third
world. March 24th commemorates the day in 1882
when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific
community by announcing that he had discovered
the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus.

At the time of Koch's announcement in Berlin, TB
was raging through Europe and the Americas,
causing the death of one out of every seven
people. Koch's discovery opened the way toward
diagnosing and curing tuberculosis.

In 1982, on the one-hundredth anniversary of Dr
Koch's presentation, the International Union
Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD)
proposed that March 24th be proclaimed an
official World TB Day. In 1996, the World Health
Organization (WHO) joined with the IUATLD and a
wide range of other concerned organizations to
increase the impact of World TB Day.

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