World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday announced ‘Tuberculosis’ as the top infectious disease killer. WHO has published new report on which it has mentioned that Tuberculosis resurged as top infectious disease killer. Notably, TB was replaced by Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) after it caused record breaking number deaths worldwide. Now, again it has taken over Covid-19 to become the top infectious disease in the world.
What’s In The Report?
WHO in its report mentioned that in the year 2023, a total of 1.25 million people died from tuberculosis, including 161 000 people with HIV. This record marked the return of TB being the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, worldwide, following three years where it was replaced by Covid-19.
The organization revealed that approximately 8.2 million people were newly diagnosed with TB in 2023, which is the highest number recorded since WHO started monitoring TB globally in 1995.
WHO said that an estimated 10.8 million people fell ill with TB worldwide in 2013, which included 6.0 million men, 3.6 million women and 1.3 million children. “TB is present in all countries and age groups,” added WHO.
It mentioned that multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) continues to remain a public health crisis and a health security threat. Only about 2 in 5 people with drug resistant TB accessed treatment in 2023.
WHO further mentioned about the efforts to combat Tuberculosis and said that global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 79 million lives since the year 2000.
WHO in its report talked about health targets of United Nations and stressed that ending the TB epidemic by 2030, is among the health targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As defined by WHO, Tuberculosis is diseased which affects lungs and is caused by bacteria ‘Mycobacterium tuberculosis.’ It is spread through the air when people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit. A person needs to inhale only a few germs to become infected.
As per WHO, 1O million people fall ill with Tuberculosis every year and despite being a preventable and curable disease, 1.5 million people die from TB each year – making it the world’s top infectious killer.
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