BEIJING - As many as 50,000 people die of tuberculosis annually in China, with about 1 million new cases reported each year, a health official said on Thursday.

The number indicates that one person dies of the disease every ten minutes, said Wang Yu, director with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wang added that tuberculosis or TB kills 1.4 million people each year around the world.

Currently, there are 5 million Chinese people who suffer from active tuberculosis, ranking China second among 22 countries that are most heavily plagued by the disease.