In the United States, incidence of TB among residents and new arrivals dropped in 2009 but the threat still remained, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in the latest data on its Web site. In Central and South America, TB generally kills young people in chronically poor localities.

The WHO report said the 1.7 million victims of the airborne contagion included 380,000 people with human immunodeficiency virus. Of the total, including the HIV victims, 380,000 were women, WHO said. TB affects mostly young but poor adults in their most productive years and mostly those in the developing world.

That global tally equaled 4,700 deaths a day, said the WHO, which remains upbeat about its international campaigns against the disease and insists it will be closer to winning the fight against TB if countries and funders cooperate.

"The findings in the Global Tuberculosis Control 2010 publication confirm that when WHO's best practices are put in place and with the right amount of funding and commitments from governments we can turn the tide on the TB epidemic," said Dr Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO Stop TB Department.

TB's estimated global incidence rate fell to 137 cases per 100,000 people in

2009, after peaking in 2004 at 142 cases per 100,000. The rate is falling but too slowly, WHO said. About 9.4 million new TB cases in 2009 included 1.1 million HIV sufferers.

Among emerging threats is multidrug-resistant TB, a form of the disease that is difficult and expensive to treat and fails to respond to standard first-line drugs.

Since 1995, 41 million people beat TB through treatment and up to 6 million in advanced stages of TB survived through WHO-driven strategies.

WHO's Stop TB Partnership is a network of more than 1,000 stakeholders worldwide.

At least 5 million lives could be saved by 2015 by fully funding and implementing what the WHO calls a Global Plan to Stop TB 2011-2015, said the U.N. body.

Funding for TB control continues to increase and will reach almost $5 billion in 2011. There is considerable variation in what countries spend on a per patient basis -- from $100 to $1,000 per person -- and the extent to which countries rely on domestic or external sources of funds.

At the regional level, the mortality target could be achieved in five of the WHO's six regions, the exception being the African region although mortality rates are falling there too. "Prevalence is falling globally and in all six WHO regions," said the report. "The target of halving the 1990 prevalence rate by 2015 appears out of reach at global level, but could be achieved in three of six regions: the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific region.

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