Sunday was the 18th World TB Day, highlighting the fact that tuberculosis is still a global public health problem.

Like hunger, malnutrition and poor living conditions, TB is often linked with poverty and backwardness, and to many people TB no longer seems a problem. Very few people pay it much attention.

However, 1.4 million people around the world die of TB every year. China has the world's second- largest tuberculosis epidemic, after India, and 50,000 people die of TB every year. That means that one person dies of TB every 10 minutes in China. Although the rate is declining the World Health Organization estimates that China has 1 million new instances of TB each year.