The World Health Organisation on Tuesday said that more than 8 million people were diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) last year. This is the highest number of cases that have been recorded since the U.N.
health agency began keeping track in 1995. In 2022, the WHO recorded 7.5 million cases of TB.
Nearly 1.25 million people died of TB last year and added that TB likely returned to being the world’s top infectious disease killer after being replaced by COVID-19 during the pandemic. WHO said that TB continues to mostly affect people in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific; India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan account for more than half of the world’s cases, according to a report in AP.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement said, “The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it.” While there has been a slight drop in the number of TB-related deaths to 1.25 million in 2023 from 1.
32 million in 2022, the number of people being newly infected is beginning to stabilise. WHO noted that of the 400,000 people estimated to have drug-resistant TB last year, fewer than half were diagnosed and treated. Tuberculosis is a condition which causes infection in your lungs and other tissues.
While it usually affects your lungs, TB can also affect several other organs of your body like your spine, brain or kidneys. The condition can spread from one perso.