Brazil ploughs US$3.6 million into TB (tuberculosis) detection:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The Brazilian health ministry has allocated R$11.1m (US$3.6m) in 2002 to a programme of incentives to promote the detection of tuberculosis (TB). The funding, up R$3.5m since 2001, will be used to encourage implementation of the World Health Organization's directly observed treatment strategy (DOTS), which involves diagnostic testing for the disease and prognostic monitoring of treatment. Some 20% of the estimated 120,000 TB patients in Brazil are monitored under DOTS. Brazil aims to raise this to 50% by 2003 and 100% by 2005, principally in the 329 municipalities most severely affected by the disease. Under the ministry's incentives scheme, each municipality will receive R$50 for every new case diagnosed and R$200 for every patient treated. Some 82,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. TB is a priority areas for the WHO, which believes that the disease kills some two million people every year (see this page).