Warning: World Health Organization Warns Tuberculosis Is Not Under Control, a minute as case numbers rise.

Warning: World Health Organization Warns Tuberculosis Is Not Under Control, a minute as case numbers rise.

Tuberculosis is killing more people than thought, yet governments are not doing enough to bring the debilitating infectious disease under control, the World Health Organisation has said.

Source: www.alodokter.com

The UN has set a target of cutting TB deaths by 90% and cases of the disease by 80% between 2015 and 2030.

The increase reflects a pervasive problem in combating tuberculosis: worldwide, the number of cases that are officially reported lags far behind the estimated total numb
er of cases of TB. Of an estimated 10.4 million new cases in 2015, only 6.1 million were detected and reported to authorities.

According to the WHO report, low- and middle-income countries where the tuberculosis epidemic is most serious needed $8.3 billion in funding in 2016, but received almost $2 billion less than that, most of it from domestic funding sources in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

In 2015, there were an estimated 10.4 million new TB cases worldwide. Six countries accounted for 60% of the total burden, with India bearing the brunt, followed by Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.

An estimated 1.8 million people died from TB in 2015, of whom 0.4 million were co-infected with HIV. Although global TB deaths fell by 22 percent between 2000 and 2015, the disease was one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide in 2015, responsible for more deaths than HIV and malaria.

Report: 2012.
Source:LumiByte 

Gaps in testing for TB and reporting new cases remain major challenges. Of the estimated 10.4 million new cases, only 6.1 million were detected and officially notified in 2015, leaving a gap of 4.3 million. This gap is due to underreporting of TB cases especially in countries with large unregulated private sectors, and under-diagnosis in countries with major barriers to accessing care.

In addition, the rate of reduction in TB cases remained static at 1.5 percent from 2014 to 2015. This needs to accelerate to 4 percent to 5 percent by 2020 to reach the first milestones of the World Health Assembly-approved "End TB Strategy."

Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis. WHO estimates that 480,000 people fell ill with MDR-TB in 2015 . Three countries carry the major burden of MDR-TB – India, China, and the Russian Federation – which together account for nearly half of all cases globally.

Detection and treatment gaps continue to plague the MDR-TB response. In 2015, only 1in 5 of the people newly eligible for second-line treatment were able to access it. Cure rates continue to remain low globally at 52%.

"Everyone has a part to play in closing the gap. As the report shows, we need universal health coverage, social protection mechanisms, and public health financing in high burden countries. The development aid community needs to step up more investments now, or we will simply not end one of the world’s oldest and deadliest diseases."

"The resources deployed against TB, the leading infectious killer in the world, are falling short," said Dr. Ariel Pablos-Méndez, assistant administrator for global health of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – the leading bilateral funder of the TB response.