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The origin of World TB Day
Each year, Stop TB advocates around the world mark the date 24 March as
“World TB Day” when the German bacteriologist Robert Koch announced that he
had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus in 1882. There
has been more than 100 years since Koch's discovery but TB is still a major
health problem around the globe, especially in the developing world. World
TB Day is a valuable opportunity to raise public awareness and knowledge
about tuberculosis so that it can be prevented and controlled effectively
and proactively.
TB in Hong Kong
In recent years, there are still around 4,000 reported cases of TB each year. In 2023 (provisional figure), the total number of TB notifications was 3,260. For every 100,000 people, 43.5 developed TB disease. The notification figure showed dramatic improvement when compared with 1950s and 1960s but was still high when compared with the figures of the European and American countries.
Common misunderstandings about TB
Nowadays, people still have some misunderstandings about TB. Some examples
of misunderstandings: all TB patients should be admitted to hospital for
isolation; after taking anti-TB treatment for a few weeks, the drugs can be
stopped if the symptoms have disappeared. For more information about TB,
please visit http://www.info.gov.hk/tb_chest/en/contents/c1214.htm.
What is DOT?
Directly observed treatment (DOT) is strongly recommended by
authoritative bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the
International Union Against Tuberculosis And Lung Diseases (IUATLD) as
a most effective measure in the control of tuberculosis. For more
details, please visit http://www.info.gov.hk/tb_chest/en/contents/c1210.htm.
Statistics on TB
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