http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=1855159

Tuberculosis "time bomb" costs Europe billions of euros a year

Often thought of as a disease of the past or one restricted to marginalized communities, TB is already inflicting annual direct costs of more than 500 million euros on the region and another 5.3 billion euros in productivity losses, Reuters reported. The study, by health economists based in Germany, also suggests the economic burden of TB far outweighs the likely costs of investing in much-needed research to develop more effective medicines and vaccines - something they said governments and the drug industry should do urgently. "We know that new drugs and vaccines are very expensive (to develop), but if you take these costs into consideration, then everything is justified," said Roland Diel, a health economics professor at Germany΄s University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel, who led the study. The emergence of strains of that can΄t be treated with even the most powerful of drugs has turned TB into one of the world΄s most pressing health problems.