WHO urges nations to step up the fight against TB

The World Health Organization on Thursday urged over 30 countries, including some of the world's richest, to recognise the continued danger of tuberculosis and try to wipe it out by 2050. Millions are also unknowingly infected with the TB bacillus, which can be spread by sneezing, and therefore risk falling ill at some point, the WHO underlined. "If you talk to the general public of these countries, (they think) it is a disease of the past, that they don't have it anymore," said Marco Raviglione, head of the WHO's anti-TB programme. The 33 countries have been singled out precisely because they have relatively low levels of tuberculosis, notably compared with hotspots such as China, India and the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.