Global Burden Of Tuberculosis Increased Than Thought

The World Health Organization (WHO) said today, the intensive efforts in the recent years in order to improve the collection and reporting of Tuberculosis (TB) data are ratcheting up the concern over the epidemic, exposing there are at least half a million more cases diagnosed than previously estimated.

As per the WHO’s ‘Global Tuberculosis Report 2014’around 9 million people were diagnosed TB in 2013 and 1.5 million died.

The report also revealed, the morality rate of the Tuberculosis is declining and has dropped by 45% since 1990, while the number of people developing TB has decreased by an average of 1.5% per year. WHO stated that around 37 million lives have been saved with the timely diagnosis and effective treatment.

According the World Health Organizations statistic, an estimated 1.1 million, which is 13% of 9 million who diagnosed TB in 2013 were HIV positive. Moreover, the number of deaths among TB HIV positive people declining from 540,000 in 2004 to 360,000 in 2013.

Multidrug-Resistant TB Crisis Continues

Mario Raviglione, Managing director of the Global TB Programme, WHO stated, “With the concerted efforts by WHO, by countries and multiple partners who invested in national surveys and regular surveillance efforts helped us in providing authentic data and bringing us nearer to understanding the true burden of TB.”

As per the findings of the report, the global health community has made “considerable” efforts responding to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), yet it remains “far from sufficient.”

World Health Organization noted that the MDR-TB “crisis” still continues. Globally, around 3.5% of all people who developed TB in 2013 had MDR-TB. Some countries have “severe epidemics” of MDR-TB and “alarmingly low” treatment success rates, the report notes.

In addition, extensively drug-resistant TB has now been reported in 100 countries.

Way back in 2009, WHO called for a global access for the diagnosis and treatment of MDR-TB, which eventually contributed to a huge increase in cases diagnosed and treated. 136,000 MDR-TB cases were detected in 2013, up from 52,825 in 2009, and 97,000 people were started on treatment, up from 30,500 in 2009.

WHO stated, “though the number of patients treated has increased three-fold since 2009, at least 39,000 patients, diagnosed with this form of TB, were not being treated last year and globally only 48% of patients were cured.”

Karin Weyer, PhD, WHO coordinator for laboratories, diagnostics, and drug resistance stated, “The efforts that has been made in overcoming MDR-TB has been hard won and must be strengthened. Containing and reversing the epidemic requires immediate and sustained efforts by all stakeholders.”