NEPAL:  In 1993 the World Health Organization declared the tuberculosis epidemic a global emergency and called for immediate international action, the first time the United Nations organization ever made such a pronouncement. A typical TB patient gives the disease to as many as 20 people a year. People need to inhale large doses of live bacteria in order to become infected so it means the disease is spread among people living in close proximity to one another.

BANGLADESH:   Pulmonary TB, the only infectious form, can be easily diagnosed by microscope. The key to controlling regular TB through an inexpensive program known as Directly Observed Treatment Short Course includes diagnosing sick patients, observing them daily as they swallow every pill during the six-month treatment and maintaining accurate records.

GUINEA: Her husband dead from TB, a woman faces emotional and economic tragedy. The disease strikes the young, debilitating and killing the most productive workers.

PERU: Researchers have found frightening levels of untreatable drug-resistant TB bacteria in a third of the 35 countries studied by the World Health Organization.

NICARAGUA: Tuberculosis, the White Plague, kills an estimated 3 million people every year. Unlike some more dramatic diseases like cholera, which can kill in hours, or Ebola, which takes only a few days, tuberculosis kills a person over a period of months or years. While TB can infect any organ, pulmonary tuberculosis is the only infectious form.