Reaching the Poor

Tuberculosis is a disease of poverty, resulting in an estimated 1,000 deaths each day in the WHO Western Pacific region. The loss of productive labour and frequently unaffordable treatment costs usually forces TB patients and their families deeper into poverty and, when aggregated to the national level, results in a significant obstacle to economic development and poverty reduction. Building on work done at the global level, this publication contains evidence from the Western Pacific region on the relationship between poverty and TB, with the aim of assisting national policymakers and TB programme managers improve access by the poor to directly observed treatment (DOTS) for TB.