March 24, 1999
Web posted at: 4:56 p.m. EST (2156 GMT)

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(CNN) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) has released its third annual surveillance report, "Global Tuberculosis Control WHO Report 1999." The report, which outlined successes in TB control, also recognized the need for better access to good medical treatment in Asia.

In an effort to draw more attention to tuberculosis, WHO declares "World TB Day" each March 24, the anniversary of Dr. Robert Koch's 1882 discovery of the TB bacillus in Berlin.

Doctors once thought the disease would disappear this century, instead it is making a comeback.

"It's becoming worse throughout the world. It's estimated it kills two to three million a year. In China, there's (an) estimated quarter of a million deaths from tuberculosis each year," said Roderick Gee of WHO.

Current estimates place the number of people in China with TB at six million.

Zhang Muqiang, 15, suffers from the disease. "At the beginning, it felt like a flu. I went to see a doctor, but medicines didn't help at all. So I went to a hospital and had a chest x-ray. That's when the doctor told me I had tuberculosis," Zhang said.

China's poor at risk

TB thrives in China's countryside, where residents are either too poor or located too far away from doctors to receive proper medical care.

It is also rampant among the country's migrant workers, who often live in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

Still, there is help for patients who know where to look for it. A joint program between the central government and the World Bank provides free care and medical supervision in 13 Chinese provinces.

TB victims with money can to go to institutions like the Beijing Tuberculosis Hospital. There, doctors say they are fighting both an aggressive virus and ignorance over how the sickness can be beaten.

"It takes six to eight months to fully cure tuberculosis," said Duanmu Hongjin of the National Tuberculosis Control Center. "But some patients take medicines for one or two months, then feel better and think they are cured. But in reality they haven't been cured at all, and when these people get a relapse, it's very difficult to treat them."

Doctors on the frontline against TB believe China needs better medical training to help inexperienced medical workers catch the disease in its early stages. Facilities are also need to provide long-term medical care.

But both measures take money and government support. Neither is easily available since fighting a killer disease like tuberculosis may not be a political priority.