The World Health Organization’s 2024 Global Tuberculosis report reveals a sobering reality. Formidable challenges remain in the fight against the world’s most infectious disease: persistent poverty in high burden countries; increased rates of infection among vulnerable populations; the inability to find and treat all missing cases; and funding shortfalls. The WHO’s report measures progress in two ways: the number of TB-related deaths, and the number of people who become ill.
There is still a long battle ahead to eradicate a disease that results in over 10 million patients among those already infected and claims around 1.5 million lives each year. This even though it is preventable and curable.
The good news is that some countries in Africa have made significant progress in reducing infection rates and TB-related deaths. Global health specialist Tom Nyirenda assesses some of the report’s key findings and messages. Tackling poverty beats TB In 2023, an estimated 10.
8 million people fell ill with TB worldwide, including 6.0 million men, 3.6 million women and 1.
3 million children . This is slightly more than the 10.6 million people recorded in 2022 .
TB can be defeated because we have good diagnostic tools and effective treatment for the commonest forms of the disease. Global funding, which is critical in fighting TB, is not yet up to the scale that is required to stop the disease. Only 26% of the funding committed by global partners to TB prevention, diagnostic and treat.
