Tuberculosis leads to as many Deaths as AIDS — WHO Report

“Most of these deaths could have been prevented”, according to WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2015, which was released today in Washington, D.C.

During a phone interview, Dr. Raviglione said “The good news is that TB intervention has saved a few 43 million lives since 2000”.

Despite the encouraging news, TB is still one of the leading causes of death around the world, and 1.5 million people died from the disease in 2014.

The report calls for TB detection and treatment gaps and funding problems to be thoroughly addressed. This year, the shortfall amounted to $1.4bn of the $8bn needed to properly implement interventions, while research into the development of new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines is facing an annual funding gap of at least $1.3bn.

Yogan Pillay – the Department of Health’s head of HIV/Aids, TB, and maternal and child health – conceded that SA’s TB incidence rate was high by global standards, but emphasised that it was declining. “That shows a lack of consideration for what this disease is, how many people it kills and the fact that it is curable”. People with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV/AIDS, are more susceptible to becoming infected with TB than those who are healthy.

It is unacceptable that 4,400 people continue to die from TB each day when we can diagnose and cure almost every person with TB. The 3 countries with the largest numbers of cases are China, India and the Russian Federation. However, even with an obvious similarity in targeted groups and death tolls, researchers on TB do not have as much funding as those fighting HIV/AIDS. More deaths are attributed to tuberculosis than AIDS/HIV, with TB to blame for 1.5 million deaths in 2014 to AIDS/HIV’s 1.2 million. Of 480,000 multidrug-resistant TB cases in 2014, only about one in four (123,000) was detected and reported. The organization noted that these programs are vital because TB is starting to evolve into a superbug, which is already resistant to drugs that are commonly used to treat the disease, the Huffington Post reported. Its “End TB Strategy“, adopted by all World Health Organization member states, will aim to reduce TB incidence by 80 per cent and TB deaths by 90 per cent by 2030.

“In the Pacific and South-East Asia the Global Fund is doing far more than the Australian government ever could – in other words we are leveraging our aid dollars massively”, Mr Costello said.

Landon Myer, of the University of Cape Town’s school of public health, said: “The government is implementing state-of-the-art TB programmes recommended by the WHO, but our tools are really limited. We want the most vulnerable communities worldwide to gain first, not last, in our efforts”, he added.