DHAKA (Reuters)
- Tuberculosis and malaria, once believed under control, are killing
millions of people in Southeast Asian countries, a World Health
Organisation (WHO) official said on Monday.
"TB and
Malaria, which were once considered to have been brought under
control, are (now) rampant ... in developing countries and specifically
in our region," Dr Uton Muchtar Rafei, WHO regional director
in Southeast Asia, told a Dhaka health conference. The three-day
conference on tuberculosis and malaria, attended by about 50 parliamentarians
from 10 Southeast Asian countries, was opened by Bangladesh Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina. "An estimated 40 percent of the population
is infected with TB in our region and more than 1.5 million people
died of TB last year," Rafei said. "The poor are more
than twice as likely to get TB than non-poor.
Globally,
95 percent of TB cases occur in poor countries," he said.
He said an estimated 25 million people suffered from malaria and
over 1.25 billion people were at risk of contracting malaria in
the region.
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