TB’s Deadly Resurgence: The Forgotten Killer That’s Now Claiming More Lives Than Covid-19

After being surpassed for three consecutive years by Covid-19, tuberculosis once again became the deadliest infectious disease in 2023, causing almost 1.2 million deaths worldwide, well above the 320,000 that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that it is caused the coronavirus that caused the pandemic at the beginning of the decade.

However, the figure represents a slight decrease compared to the global deaths from tuberculosis recorded in 2022, when it caused almost 1.3 million deaths, the World Health Organization noted in presenting its annual report on the number the cases of this disease this Tuesday.

The Geneva-based organization attributes this reduction in deaths to the restoration of the diagnosis and treatment systems against tuberculosis and other diseases, which had been reduced during the acute phase of the pandemic.

The document also pointed to a slight increase in the number of people who became ill with tuberculosis (both newly diagnosed and re-infected), going from 10.6 million registered in 2022 to 10.8 million in 2023.

ASIA AND AFRICA, IN CASES

By region, 45% of these cases were found in South East Asia, 24% in Africa and 17% in East Asia and the Pacific, while a lower proportion was recorded in the Middle East and Maghreb (8.6 %), America (3.2%) and Europe (2.1%).

Of the 10.8 million registered cases, 6 million were in adult men, 3.6 million in women and 1.3 million in children and young people, according to the WHO report.

Five countries accounted for more than half of the global tuberculosis burden: India (26%), Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), the Philippines (6.8%), and Pakistan (6.3%) which, according to the World Health Organization, shows that this disease continues to affect areas that develop “disproportionately.”

“It is a shame that so many people continue to die and get sick from tuberculosis when we have the tools to prevent, detect and treat the disease,” said WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, presenting the report.

On a positive note, the World Health Organization celebrated an increase in diagnosed cases last year, up to 8.2 million, surpassing the 7.5 million in 2022 and reaching the highest number since the organization began monitoring this disease globally. wide in 1995.

According to the World Health Organization, this progress has been possible thanks to the “significant efforts” made at national and global levels to recover from the disruption of detection and prevention networks during the Covid-19 crisis, especially in countries with higher incidence of tuberculosis such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

MORE DIAGNOSIS OF MULTI-RESISTANT TUBERCULOSIS

Despite these advances, the report warns that multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which does not respond to the main treatments against the disease such as rifampicin, is still a “public health emergency.”

Therefore, of the 400,000 people who the UN health agency estimates suffered from this more serious tuberculosis until last year, it is estimated that only 44% were diagnosed and received the corresponding treatment in 2023.

The World Health Organization warns that one of the main obstacles to fighting tuberculosis is still the global funding gap for its prevention and treatment, which fell in 2023 to 5.7 billion dollars (5.289 million euro), well below the annual goal of 22,000 million dollars (. 20,415 million euro).

However, he also points to five other factors that cause the increase in the number of tuberculosis cases worldwide: malnutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, smoking (especially among men) and diabetes.

Faced with this situation, the World Health Organization called on the international community to tackle these problems at their roots, fighting critical determinants such as poverty or low per capita income in the most affected countries , and therefore proceed to eradicate this disease.

With information from EFE