World TB Day 2002 - In the News

Xinhua General News Service
Headline: World Bank Lends 104 million Dollars for Anti-TB Program in China
Date: Washington, March 21 2002

BODY:
The World Bank said Thursday it will lend China 104 million U.S. dollars to expand an 11-year-old tuberculosis-reduction program that health experts regard as one of most successful in the world.

The low-interest loan is among the largest the bank has made to fight infectious diseases in developing countries, the bank said. Jagadish Upadhyay, who heads the bank's anti-tuberculosis project in China, said 1.3 million Chinese develop the infectious form of TB every year. Some of them obtain free treatment under a program financed by the bank that has cured 90 percent of patients. The World Health Organization (WHO) has called it one of the most successful in the world.

The 104-million-dollar loan approved Thursday will finance the expansion of the anti-TB program to three additional provinces in China, the bank said.

Back to Home Page - WTBD '02 main page - Top of Page