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.

That indicates that one person dies of the disease every 10 minutes, according to Wang Yu, director with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

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