Tuberculosis claims more than 500,000 lives in the South-East Asia region each year despite marked progress in combating the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a regional report released in the Indian capital Monday, according to dpa. With 4.97 million cases of tuberculosis, 11 countries in the region carry more than a third of the global burden for the disease, the Tuberculosis in South-East Asia Region 2008 report, released by WHO's regional director for the Southeast Asian region Samlee Plianbangchang, said. The 11 countries included in the report are India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Timor-Leste and North Korea. India has the highest incidence of the disease in the region with a estimated 1.4 million cases occurring each year, the report said. It said all member countries were in the process of implementing a new TB control strategy, but setting up of an adequate network of quality-assured laboratories for performing drug susceptibility tests remained a challenge.
