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Background: Evaluating the tuberculosis (TB) status of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member countries relation to goal 6-c of the third millennium, which includes that TB incidence, prevalence, and death rates should be halved by 2015, compared with their level in 1990. Methods: In 2009, we have critically reviewed the countries' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reports and extracted the data from the surveillance system and published and unpublished data. The main stakeholders, from both governmental and international organizations in the country have been visited and interviewed by the research team as part of the data validation process. Results: The TB incidence is very heterogeneous among ECO countries, which differ from 21.7 in Iran to 230.7 per 100,000 in Tajikistan. TB incidence (per 100,000) is more than 100 in six countries and is from 50 to 100 in two countries and is less than 30 in two countries. Only in two countries the crude death rate (CDR) is higher than 70%. In seven countries the death rate is higher than 10 per 100,000. Two countries are among the 20 top world countries with the highest tuberculosis burden. Conclusion: There are some signs and signals indicating the bad condition of an ECO member including: incidence of more than 50 per 100000, CDR of less than 70%, death rate more than 10 per 100,000, and rating two member countries among 20 top countries with the highest burden in the world. Iran and Turkey could achieve MDGs by 2015, but if other countries do not prepare urgent intervention programs, they will not be able to fulfill the goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complete D-loop sequences of 20 Mus from three localities in Turkey and seven in Iran were characterized. These countries are thought to be close to the place of origin of the subspecies Mus musculus domesticus. Five new M. m. domesticus haplotypes were added to the nine already known for the region. Four of these 14 haplotypes were very similar to the consensus D-loop sequence for western Europe defined by Nachman et al. (1994), which may represent the ancestral condition for M. m. domesticus. A divergent mtDNA lineage is found in various parts of Turkey and northern Iran; it has spread into western Europe, but other European lineages were not found in either Turkey or Iran. The other Mus D-loop sequences were of M. m. castaneus and Mus macedonicus and confirmed M. macedonicus as a monotypic species with low nucleotide diversity. The prevalence of the standard 40-chromosome complement in this region is particularly interesting with regards M. m. domesticus, as it is consistent with the in situ origin of Robertsonian karyotypic races (2n < 40) in western Europe.