Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/06/29
By: Chen Wei-ting and S.C. Chang

Taipei, June 29 (CNA) The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Wednesday that tuberculosis is the most deadly notifiable disease in Taiwan, killing some 600 people per year.

On average, 11,000 people in Taiwan are diagnosed each year with tuberculosis and 600 of those cases result in death, the CDC said at international seminar in Taipei on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

CDC officials said the number of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis cases in Taiwan had fallen from 440 in 2007 to 184 in 2015, thanks to a program to halve the number in the period 2005-2015.

The program had a 77 success rate, as evidenced by the fact that only 0.8 percent of new tuberculosis patients last year were found to be drug-resistant, according to CDC data.     [FULL  STORY]