Tuberculosis worsening in China

　　The tuberculosis(肺结核) situation in China is worseni ng again. It cannot be defeated unless the current situ ation which China has four highs and one low is changed .

　　The Four Highs and the One Low mean a high infectio n rate, a high drug resistance rate, a high death rate, a high incidence of infection, and a low rate of declin e changes.

　　Experts say that China is one of the twenty-two cou ntries in the world with the highest turberculosis burd en. China ranks second in the world in the total number of its people who have TB. Over 500 million Chinese hav e been exposed to the TB bacillus, six million have act ive TB and two million are contagious carriers of the d isease. Over two hundred and fifty thousand Chinese die each year from TB. This is twice as many as those who d ie from all of China's other contagious diseases combin ed.

　　The rate of TB in the Chinese countryside is 2.4 ti mes that in the city. In China, as in other countries, at least half of the infections, active TB cases, and d eaths are in women. Children are the most vulnerable to infection of all. According to statistics, the TB death rate among children aged 0-4 and 0-14 are 0.8 per 100,0 00 and 0.5 per 100,000. A survey found that about half of the TB positive people have not been found and regis tered. For various reasons, about 65.9 percent of the p eople with TB symptoms are not diagnosed as having TB.

　　Experts warn that no disease compares with TB in th e damage it inflicts on families and the harm it does t o China's economic development. Seventy-five percent of the people with active TB cases are in the 15-34 age gr oup, the most productive age group. This means that Chi na loses 360 million working days each year to TB.

　　TB is very dangerous but it can be cured.

　　from Beijing Youth Daily