The Chinese Government has promised to provide free medical treatment for tuberculosis patients from this year.

"Free medical treatment will be given not only to existing and diagnosed patients, but also to newly diagnosed patients in the future," Wang Longde, vice minister of health.

"Although the Central Government's investment reached 265 million yuan (US$32 million) in 2004, lack of cash is still a problem in TB control, particularly for some local governments," Wang said.

"More effort must be made to detect TB sufferers," said Liu Jianjun, director of the National Center for TB Control and Prevention.

It is estimated that China has 4.5 million TB patients, and annually records 1.45 million new cases, according to the Ministry of Health.

TB, an air-borne lung disease, is the leading killer of all infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

It kills 130,000 people in China every year and four people die of the disease throughout the world every minute.

In China, 80 percent of TB patients live in remote and poverty-stricken areas, particularly the 12 provinces and regions in North, Central and West China, such as Shanxi and Sichuan provinces.

Although a third of the world's population carries the TB germs, known as bacilli, only one in 10 becomes infected, the WHO said.

In China, millions of people were once infected with bacilli, records show.

"It's tragic that so many people suffer silently with TB when there is, in fact, a cure for the disease," said WHO's Regional Director for the Western Pacific, Dr. Shigeru Omi.

Without treatment, about one-third of these undetected cases will continue to infect up to 15 people each, fueling the spread of a TB epidemic.

But China's transient 150-million population makes TB detection and prevention difficult as they move between countryside and cities in search of work, said Liu.

Editor: Catherine