After three years in the shadow of Covid-19, tuberculosis has just regained its sad crown as the deadliest infectious disease on the planet. According to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), published on October 29 and reported by IFLScience, it caused the death of 1.25 million people worldwide in 2023, compared to 320,000 for Covid-19.
How to explain the increase in the number of cases
A total of 10.8 million people contracted tuberculosis last year. A figure that has been increasing since 2020. No country is immune, even if India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan alone account for 56% of recorded infections. Caused by the pathogenic bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, tuberculosis is curable in approximately 85% of cases, but causes death in nearly 50% of patients who do not receive treatment.
The increase in the number of cases can be explained by five factors: undernutrition, HIV infection, disorders linked to alcohol consumption, smoking and diabetes. “Tackling these problems, as well as key drivers such as poverty and GDP per capita, requires coordinated multisectoral action,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement.
Too little funding
The authors of the report regret that funding for the fight against tuberculosis is far from achieving the objectives set. The WHO estimates that $22 billion will be needed each year until 2027 for prevention, diagnostic and treatment services, and $5 billion for research. Sectors which however only received 5.7 and 1 billion dollars respectively in 2023.
“Urgent action is needed to end the global tuberculosis epidemic by 2030, a goal that has been adopted by all member states of the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization. health,” they recall.
“A scandal”
“The fact that tuberculosis kills and sickens so many people is a scandal, even though we have the tools to prevent, detect and treat it,” the WHO director-general said in the press release. WHO urges all countries to honor the concrete commitments they have made to expand the use of these tools and end TB.”
The WHO nevertheless highlights “several positive trends”, starting with the six new vaccines currently in phase III clinical trials, which give hope that a new treatment could be available within five years. The organization is also pleased that the number of deaths linked to tuberculosis has been declining for several years (with the exception of 2020 and 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 period).
