the dragon and the tiger realties in the control of tuberculosis龙和虎不动产结核病的控制.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases Volume 2012, Article ID 625459, 10 pages doi:10.1155/2012/625459 Review Article The Dragon and the Tiger: Realties in the Control of Tuberculosis P. Bhatter, A. Chatterjee, and N. Mistry Department of Tuberculosis, The Foundation for Medical Research, 84-A, R.G. Thadani Marg, Worli, Mumbai 400018, India Correspondence should be addressed to N. Mistry, fmr@ Received 20 February 2012; Accepted 20 April 2012 Academic Editor: Giuseppe Botta Copyright © 2012 P. Bhatter et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. India and China are two Asian super-powers with developing economies carried on the shoulders of their booming populations. This growth can only be sustained by nurturing their “human resource”. However increasing reports of insufficient public health (PH) initiatives in India when compared to the aggressive PH system of China may prove to be the Achilles’ heels for India. This review compares the PH system in India and China for combating Tuberculosis (TB), the disease responsible for maximum mortality and morbidity by a single infectious agent. While China has acknowledged the disease load and thereafter has methodically improved its reporting, detection, diagnosis and treatment, India is still in denial of the imminent health risk. The Indian PH system still considers TB as a “facultative” disease for which the required control measures are already in place and functioning. Globally, India and China recorded the highest Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR) cases notified in 2010 (64000 and 63000, respe