The World Health Organization says a treatment strategy is stemming tuberculosis in , and saving tens of thousands of lives.

India has the highest number tuberculosis cases in the world. The figures are staggering. In India, 1.8 people develop tuberculosis every year, and 1,000 people die every day, or every minute.

The disease, despite being curable, ran rampant in India because illiterate and impoverished patients could not afford the recommended 6-month treatment. Many taking the drugs halfway, and as a result, tuberculosis recurred in a deadly, drug-resistant form.

Five years ago, the Indian government and the World Organization began a large-scale approach called "Directly Observed Treatment," or DOTS, which been successful in other countries.

Directly Observed Treatment means that no drugs handed out to patients. Instead, health clinics identify tuberculosis patients, then insist walk to the nearest free clinic three times a week and take medicine while a health worker watches. Two million people are currently being under DOTS.

Leopold Blanc is a WHO coordinator for tuberculosis control. He visited five Indian states and is upbeat about what he found, saying new strategy seems to be working. "The patient is properly diagnosed. There drugs available free of charge. The patient treatment is monitored carefully. There regular monitoring of what is going on. Reports are sent up to national level. And, I think these are the very, very important elements." experts say the cure rate has increased dramatically. WHO expert Fabio Luelmo 450,000 Indians will be saved by the end of this year.

"Mortality being reduced already. And certainly transmission is being reduced, and, therefore, the in the next generation will have much less tuberculosis than in this ."

Right now, the program covers about three-quarters of India's one billion-plus population. is urging the government to expand the program to the rest of population to completely wipe out the disease.

WHO officials say, if the continues on the right track, India could cut the incidence of tuberculosis half in six-to-seven years.

Tuberculosis is one of the world's deadliest infectious , and has recently made a comeback in rich, industrialized nations. The dramatic prompted WHO to declare the disease a global emergency in 1993.