Disaster awaits Asia.

PIP: The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Japanese Anti-Tuberculosis Association estimate that tuberculosis (TB) will be responsible for more than 20 million premature deaths in Asia because governments worldwide have stopped fighting TB. About 66% of all TB cases in the world are in Asia. HIV infection is spreading more rapidly in Asia than anywhere else in the world. In the next 10 years, TB and AIDS will probably be responsible for the deaths of more Asians than the combined populations of the cities of Singapore, Beijing, Yokohama, and Tokyo. People with HIV infection are 30 times more likely to develop TB than people with no HIV infection. In fact, an HIV-positive person has a 10% chance of developing TB each year, while an HIV-negative person has a 10% chance of developing TB in his/her lifetime. Just breathing the same air as people infected with TB places the immuno-comprised person at risk of TB. A few weeks after beginning TB treatment, most TB patients, regardless of HIV status, are no longer contagious. Yet, governments' unwillingness to fight TB results in less than 50% of all TB cases being cured of TB. Some poor countries (Tanzania, Mozambique, China, and Peru) have invested in effective TB control programs, resulting in a cure rate as high as 90%. WHO estimates that annual expenditures geared towards HIV control in developing countries need to increase between $1500 million and $2900 million. They must increase between $100 million and $150 million for TB control activities. Yet, funding for WHO's Global Programme on AIDS is decreasing and its TB program operated on $7 million in 1994. The Japanese government provides more foreign aid to WHO's TB Programme than any other developed country. As of 1992, Japan had about 11,000 HIV-infected persons compared to about 30 million persons with TB. More than 32,000 Japanese will probably die from TB during the 1990s.^ieng