TB remains world’s deadliest infectious disease: WHO

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease although global efforts have averted an estimated 54 million tuberculosis (TB) deaths since 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday.

BS | WHO, in its latest 2018 Global TB Report, says countries are still not doing enough to end TB by 2030 and calls for an unprecedented mobilization of national and international commitments. It urges for decisive action from nearly 50 heads of state and government who are expected to gather next week for the first-ever UN High-level Meeting on TB, Xinhua news agency reported.

The report finds that overall, TB deaths have decreased over the past year, with an estimated 10 million people having developed TB and 1.6 million deaths, including among 300,000 HIV-positive people, in 2017. The number of new cases is falling by two percent per year.

However, underreporting and under-diagnosis of TB cases remains a major challenge. Of the 10 million people who fell ill with TB in 2017, only 6.4 million were officially recorded by national reporting systems, leaving 3.6 million people undiagnosed, or detected but not reported.

Ten countries accounted for 80 percent of this gap, according to the report, with India, Indonesia and Nigeria topping the list. Less than half of the estimated one million children with TB were reported in 2017, making it a much higher gap in detection than that in adults.

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Income inequality: In India, a CEO earns 416 times more than his employee

The seriousness of India's commitment to end income disparity has been ranked 132nd out of 152 nations

The seriousness of India's commitment to end income disparity has been ranked 132nd out of 152 nations owing to low spending on health and education, a crumbling tax system and wide gaps in gender pay.

Prepared by Development Finance International and Oxfam, the first index to measure the commitment of governments to reducing the gap between the rich and the poor is based on three main indicators — government action on social spending, tax and labour rights — areas critical to reducing the gap.

The report, the result of the investigation for a year, says that while countries such as Sweden, Chile, Namibia and Uruguay have taken strong steps to reduce inequality, countries such as India and Nigeria perform poorly overall. Among the rich countries, the United States earns a bad rating.

The World Bank predicts that by 2030, almost half a billion people will still be living in extreme poverty. Back in 2015, 193 governments promised to reduce inequality as part of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).(economy news)

The report raps India particularly hard on the knuckle but not before revealing that in the country, the chief executive officer (CEO) of a top information technology (IT) firm brings in a massive 416 times the salary of his company’s typical employee.

India managed to secure a lowly 149th position on the health, education and social protection spending indicator, ranking below nations like Yemen, Senegal, Congo and Serbia.

Oxfam calculates that if India were to reduce inequality by a third, more than 170 million people would no longer be poor. It also questioned the lack of a concerted effort by the government to tackle inequality.

India secured the 91st rank among nations on the progressive structure and incidence of tax indicator. "The tax structure looks reasonably progressive on paper, but in practice, much of the progressive tax is not collected," the report said.

While many countries are collecting very little tax overall, India collects just 16.7% of gross domestic product (GDP), while comparable economies such as Indonesia collects 11.9% and South Africa manages to collect over 27%....read full story