SA has world’s second fastest growing TB infection rate, says report

SOUTH Africans are contracting tuberculosis (TB) at a higher rate than in any other country but Lesotho, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO’s) latest report on the disease.

Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO TB program, said the report reflects the dramatic gains in access to HIV/AIDS treatment in the past decade, which has helped many people survive their infections.

The report highlighted the need to close detection and treatment gaps, fill funding shortfalls, and develop new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines. Worldwide, 9.6 million people contracted TB in 2014, 12 percent of whom were HIV positive. The MDG’s were reached globally and in 16 of 22 high-burden countries, but only a quarter of cases have been reported, according to the report, which lists China, India and the Russian Federation as the countries with the greatest prevalence of TB.

Even with the high number of deaths attributed annually to TB, the death rate has from this infectious disease has dropped 47 percent between 1990 and 2015. The ATS joins the World Health Organization in calling for increased funding to halt the global TB pandemic.

In 2014, AIDS was responsible for 1.2 million deaths globally, while tuberculosis infections accounted for 1.5 million deaths. TB deaths have actually been going down in recent years.

Among the estimated 480,000 cases of multi-drug resistant TB in 2014 – a superbug form of the disease that resists the two most potent anti-TB drugs -, only one in four was diagnosed. “We are still facing a burden of 4 400 people dying every day, which is unacceptable in an era when you can diagnose and cure almost every person with TB”.

This is especially serious for patients with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).

The WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Report estimated that the annual incidence rate in SA was 834 per 100,000 population; while Lesotho’s stood at 852 per 100,000 for 2014.

The report compiled data from 205 countries and territories and covered all aspects of tuberculosis, including drug-resistant cases, research and development and financing.

“The report shows that TB control has had a tremendous impact in terms of lives saved and patients cured”, said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, in a press release.

Dr. Grania Brigden, interim medical director from Doctors Without Borders Access Campaign, said the overall picture is “disheartening”, and is particularly bleak when it comes to MDR-TB.

“Brigden urged nations to “scale up drug-resistance testing with affordable point of care tests”.

“Ending the TB epidemic is now part of the Sustainable Development Goal agenda” said Dr Eric Goosby, UN Special Envoy on Tuberculosis.