"The right treatment is an earnest of recovery" is the motto of a World TB Day, which is marked on Monday. To Russia, the situation concerning the incidence of tuberculosis is highly important: Russia is among 22 countries that have the highest TB incidence indicators. The World Health Organisation officially warned a decade ago about a worldwide threat of TB and called on the countries to use the recognised TB control strategy. Since then ten million people have successfully recovered from TB.

In Russia, 30,000 people die of TB every year, and about 130,000 new TB cases are registered annually. TB incidence in prisons exceeds the country's average 50-fold. Medical specialists point out that TB is not so much a medical problem as a social one. It is under-nourished people, who often suffer from alcohol dependence, get infected with this disease.