Tuberculosis is a chronic infectious disease, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, among which tuberculosis is the most common. Historically, tuberculosis, like infectious diseases such as smallpox, plague and cholera, was widely prevalent all over the world. 1882 On March 24th, German scientist robert koch announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which brought a breakthrough in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis. Since then, with the successful development of anti-tuberculosis drugs, the epidemic of tuberculosis has been effectively controlled and has disappeared in some areas. In order to commemorate Koch's great discovery, 1982, the World Health Organization and the International Union for the Prevention of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease decided to designate March 24th as the World Tuberculosis Day.
Current situation of prevention and control
Since 1990s, due to the increase of floating population and the neglect of tuberculosis in many countries, tuberculosis has once again become a global epidemic. 1In April, 1993, the World Health Organization declared that the world was in a state of tuberculosis emergency. 1At the end of 1995, the World Health Organization, together with other international organizations, proposed to enhance the influence of World Tuberculosis Day to arouse public concern about tuberculosis.
According to the annual report released by the World Health Organization on March 7, 2008, there were 9.2 million new cases of tuberculosis in the world in 2006, and 1.7 million people died of tuberculosis. Africa has the highest tuberculosis infection rate in the world, while Asia has the largest number of tuberculosis patients. There are many reasons for the slow progress of global tuberculosis prevention and control, including the increasing number of patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the interaction between tuberculosis and AIDS, and insufficient funds for prevention and control. The situation of tuberculosis prevention and control is still grim. First of all, many countries lack a unified TB prevention and control plan, and many patients can't get thorough treatment, which leads to TB recurrence and drug resistance. Secondly, the double infection of AIDS and tuberculosis increases the difficulty of tuberculosis treatment. In addition, due to environmental damage, poverty, refugee flows and war turmoil, global tuberculosis prevention and control work is facing new challenges.