United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday said that the world needs to step up efforts to eradicate tuberculosis, a disease that is still rampant in many developing countries. “Today, the epidemic is continuing its decline. But the rate of decline is far too slow, and tuberculosis still takes a life every 20 seconds,” Ban said in a message ahead of World Tuberculosis Day which takes place on March 24. There are an estimated 15 million people infected globally with tuberculosis and the vast majority of these are in the developing world. About 2 million people die each year from the disease which is spread through the air when people cough or sneeze. “Together, we need to help prevent infection, find all people who are ill far earlier and provide treatment for all,” Ban said. Most cases of tuberculosis can be treated with drugs but there are other forms of the disease—multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis—which occur mostly in the developing world. The vaccine against tuberculosis is the most often used vaccine worldwide with 85 percent of newborns in 172 countries immunized annually, according to the World Health Organization.
