THE HAGUE, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Tuberculosis, a preventable and curable disease that killed 1.6 million last year across the world, goes under spotlight of the 49th Union World Conference on Lung Health opened on Wednesday in The Hague.
The unnecessary millions of deaths each year from TB is a global health emergency and requires urgent action, said Jose Luis Castro, Executive Director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), organizer of the conference.
TB now kills more people than HIV/AIDS and is the world's largest infectious disease killer. Last year 10 million people fell ill with TB. Of the 1.6 million people killed by the disease last year, it is estimated that 239,000 were children.
The three-day conference calls for a human rights approach and greater political commitment to eradicate TB and reduce the global threats of tobacco use, air pollution and other lung diseases.
The Union World Conference is the world's largest gathering of clinicians, policy makers, public health managers, researchers and advocates working to end the suffering caused by lung disease, with a focus specifically on the challenges faced by low-and-middle-income countries. Some 4,000 delegates from over 80 countries are expected to attend.
The conference will look at scientific advances and the obstacles to developing safe and user-friendly forms of TB prevention and the delivery of drugs to treat the disease and strategies to address the barriers to making effective prevention and treatment available to all.
The United Nations held a high-level meeting on TB in New York in September which ended with a political declaration signed by world leaders committed to ending TB by 2030.
