Political and social upheaval in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union has led to a dramatic increase in the number of TB infections. The
WHO said this week there have been more than 2 million new cases of infection
with the TB bacterium across the region in the past five years, and 29 000
deaths. In Moscow, the annual figure for new cases has almost doubled in
just two years.
Since the mid-1950s TB has been in decline in Eastern Europe but that
decline has now stopped – without the help of HIV or immigration, which
are blamed for fuelling the TB epidemic in North America. ‘Deteriorating
social conditions are now ruthlessly exposing weaknesses in many of the
region’s TB control programmes,’ says Arata Kochi, manager of the WHO’s
TB programme.
