The burden arising from the increased number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in Asia could threaten economic growth in Asian countries if the problem is not tackled effectively, the UN Secretary General's special envoy for TB eradication, Jorge Sampaio, said Wednesday.

TB was inflicting huge economic losses every year on Asian countries, Sampaio, who is a former Portuguese president, said on the sidelines of a meeting of the Stop Global TV Program Coordination Council being held here.

Almost half of the number of the world's TB patients were living in three Asian countries -- India (1.8 million cases per year), China (1.4 million cases annually) and Indonesia (500,000 cases a year) -- and the disease was killing one million people in Asia annually, Antara news agency quoted Sampaio as saying.

Besides creating medical expenses which were borne by the governments and patients, TB was also shortening the patients' productive period and affecting human productivity in countries where the number of TB cases was high.

Thus through collective will and support, the expenses taken from domestic and national incomes to deal with TB cases had to be stopped as it could lead poor people in Asia to be trapped in the vicious cycle of disease and poverty.

Meanwhile, director of WHO's regional office for Southeast Asia Samlee Plianbangchang said WHO and international institutions were drawing up a Stop Global TB program for 2006-2015.

The program would deal with efforts to cure and heal 50 million TB patients and save 14 million lives from TB in 2015 in a bid to meet the target of TB eradication in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The main key was to reach out to people who had so far not been touched by the program, the poor, the neglected and marginalized people, he said, adding that the plan to overcome TB, TB/HIV and resistance to TB medication in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia, should be carried out effectively in the coming years.

Source: Xinhua