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U.K. facing a 'Victorian' illness plague

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According to the UK's National Health Service (NHS), cases of diseases such as tuberculosis, scurvy, whooping cough and scarlet fever, the diseases that were assumed to have been wiped out in the developed nations, are again on the rise, Modern Readers reports.

According to the NHS, cases of cholera have increased 300% over the last five years, while scurvy diagnoses and scarlet fever cases are up by 38% and 136%, respectively.

NHS also reported that even though tuberculosis rates have declined over the last five years, in certain areas of England, TB rates are higher than would be expected in Guatemala, Iraq, Rwanda and other developing nations.

"There has been a huge rise in scarlet fever - 14,000 [suspected] cases in the last year, the highest since the 1960s," said London-based immunologist, Dr. Nuria Martinez-Alier, in an interview with CNN.

"We have seen a rise in the cases of tuberculosis, we've seen a rise in cases of whooping cough, we have seen more measles in the last 10 years than in the last 10 years before that."

Most of the diseases, except TB, that are experiencing resurgence can be cured with medication.

Dr. Martinez-Alier warned that poor vaccination rates are also aggravating the problem.

Recently, the White House published details of a new program to help fight multidrug-resistant tuberculosis on a global basis.

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