afrol News / IRIN, 28 March - Uganda records an estimated 80,000 new cases of tuberculosis every year, half of them among people infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, health officials said.

"We only managed to detect 49 percent of those cases in 2006," Francis Adatu, head of the TB and leprosy unit in the Ministry of Health, told IRIN on wednesday. "HIV/AIDS is the main trigger of dormant TB in the population today," he added.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Uganda, George Melville, expressed concern that Uganda continued to lag behind in meeting the global targets on detection and treatment of TB. He said Uganda was 15th out of 22 countries with high TB incidence.

The disease affects mostly people in the 15-49 age group and often kills within two years if not treated, according to the health ministry.

"The global strategy to stop TB relies on early detection and effective treatment," Melville said in a statement issued on the World TB Day on Saturday. Global targets for effective TB control are 70 percent for early detection and 85 percent for successful treatment.

"Uganda continues to lag behind the set targets, with only 49 percent of the expected new cases detected and only 73 percent successfully treated in 2006," Melville said.

He urged the health ministry to declare TB a public health emergency and allocate sufficient resources to control the disease.

Limited resources at the disposal of the health sector, especially laboratory personnel, limited knowledge about TB and misconceptions about the disease, and HIV/AIDS have been the main impediments to TB control efforts.

© afrol News / IRIN

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