LOS ANGELES, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The global infection rate of tuberculosis has stabilized for the first time in modern history and may be on the "threshold of decline," it was reported Thursday.

    The percentage of the world's population struck by TB peaked in2004 and then held steady or even declined in 2005, the World Heath Organization (WHO) said in a report published by the Los Angeles Times.

    Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's Stop TB Department, said the figures represented the "first time ever" that TB rates had declined.

    But the report noted that the actual number of new cases increased to 8.8 million because of the growing world population.

    "Incidence has peaked around the world," he said. "This is fruition of all our efforts."

    The announcement marks a milestone in the fight against TB, which the WHO declared a global health emergency in 1993 because of skyrocketing infections, said the paper.

    Since then, the number of deaths has declined from more than 3 million to 1.6 million in 2005, the WHO report said.

    The hardest-hit regions are Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for 7.4 million new cases in 2005, or 84 percent of the total.

    "Nearly 60 percent of TB cases worldwide are detected, and out of those, the vast majority are cured," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. "Over the past decade, 26million patients have been placed on effective TB treatment."

    But experts cautioned that TB remained a wily opponent. One of the major concerns is the emergence of "basically untreatable" TB -- strains of the disease known as multi-drug resistant and extensively drug resistant TB.

    Experts fear that either or both of those strains could gain a stronger foothold in the population, reversing the successes in treatment. The emergence of the strains has raised alarms even in countries with well-developed public health programs that have largely controlled the disease.

    Treatment of drug-resistant TB strains costs nearly twice as much as treating conventional TB and takes much longer, according to the paper.