WARSAW, Aug 3 (AFP) - The number of tuberculosis cases in Poland
is double that of European Union countries, the Polish health
ministry reported Thursday as it presented a new control program.
The number of tuberculosis cases in Poland has risen to 31.5
cases per 100,000 population, compared to a European Union average
of 15.
It will take 25 years to push down the number of tuberculosis
cases to the level of five cases per 100,000 population as currently
seen in Norway, the ministry forecast.
The Polish health ministry also presented a new tuberculosis
control plan based on the DOT (directly observed treatment)
principles developed by the World Health Organisation.
The number of tuberculosis cases has continued to rise in Poland
for the past 30 years, with the number of new infections growing by
an average of five percent per year except for last year, when there
was a 10 percent fall.
There are currently 13,000 Poles ill with tuberculosis,
according to Kazimierz Roszkowski, director of the Institute of
Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases.
Poland's tuberculosis rate is still considerably lower than
other countries in eastern Europe, such as Russia where the rate has
increased to 82.4 cases per 100,000 population.
The airborne respiratory disease spreads particularly fast among
the socially disadvantaged, homeless, alcoholics, drug users and
immigrants.
Tuberculosis is the biggest single infectious cause of mortality
in the world, killing roughly two million people each year,
according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
As much as a third of the world's population may be latent
carriers of the TB bacterium.
Pozdro
Bartek Kiwnta
b...@i...pl
"Swiat to piekne miejsce
i warto o Niego walczyc"
E.H.