BANGKOK: The increasing number of tuberculosis (TB) patients being detected among the elderly in Japan and Singapore has triggered an alarm within the public health community in East Asia.

Some health experts see this pattern as an ominous sign of the deadly lung disease — that spreads through the air — having the potential of making “a dramatic comeback”, consequently infecting more people across the region.

Japan’s TB rate is “six times higher” than developed countries like Australia and Sweden, states the WHO. In 2000, there were 33 TB cases reported for every 100,000 people in Japan, as opposed to Australia and Sweden having five reported cases of TB for every 100,000 of their population.

Singapore’s rate, the WHO said, is “seven times more” than Jordan’s, which lags behind the city-state in terms of quality of life offered its citizens. Singapore had reported 43 TB cases for every 100,000 people in 2000 while Jordan had six reported cases of this infectious disease per 100,000 people.

What is more, another Asian country with a relatively impressive development record - Malaysia - has also been singled out by the UN health agency for the number of TB patients among its elderly. “Malaysia’s rate is nearly seven times Cuba’s and four-fold that of Egypt and Mexico — countries with far lower GDPs (gross domestic product,” the Geneva-based health body reveals.

“The numbers may seem relatively small, but they’re a potential hotbed for growth,” says Dr Shigeru Omi, regional director for WHO’s Western Pacific Office. “TB could stage a dramatic comeback given the right conditions. The situation here cannot be ignored or taken lightly.”

“These countries need to be more alert,” adds Dr Dongil Ahn, the WHO’s Western Pacific advisor for its Stop TB drive. “TB is particularly a problem in urban settings.” Moreover, says Dr Ahn, many of the elderly in these nations were infected with TB “when young, when the disease was a huge epidemic in these countries”.

In the 1950s, for instance, close to half of all Japanese adolescents were infected with TB, the WHO states, quoting a study done by Japan’s Research Institute of Tuberculosis (RIT). “TB was known as the ‘national disease’ with about half a million new TB cases every year.” Other East Asian countries had equally bad TB infection rates during that period, according to the health agency.

But TB rates began falling in the 1960s in Japan due to a combination of two factors: better TB control measures and development.

“TB rates during the 1990s remained at a plateau in Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, although substantial declines had been seen in previous decades,” states the WHO.

Public health experts have a reason to feel worried about these achievements being reversed in countries that have advanced health systems. —Dawn/InterPress Service.