Drug-resistant TB threatens to kill 75 million people by 2050, cost $16.7 trillion

By Astrid Zweynert LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Over the next 35 years, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis will kill 75 million people and could cost the global economy a cumulative $16.7 trillion - the equivalent of the European Union’s annual output, a UK parliamentary group said on Tuesday. If left untackled, the spread of drug-resistant TB superbugs threatens to shrink the world economy by 0.63 percent annually, the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Tuberculosis (APPG TB) said, urging governments to do more to improve research and cooperation. "The rising global burden of multidrug-resistant TB and other drug-resistant infections will come at a human and economic cost which the global community simply cannot afford to ignore", economist Jim O'Neill said in a statement. March 23, 2015 at 08:02PM

via Lazahealth.org