Today, March 24th commemorates world Tuberculosis Day 2014 under the theme “reach the 3 million.”
World TB Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about the burden of tuberculosis (TB) worldwide and the status of TB prevention and control efforts. The Day is also an occasion to mobilize political and social commitment for further progress.
Research shows that progress towards global targets for reductions in TB cases and deaths in recent years has been impressive.
TB mortality has fallen over 45% worldwide since 1990, and incidence is declining. New TB tools such as rapid diagnostics are helping transform response to the disease and new life-saving drugs are being introduced.
But the global burden remains huge and significant challenges persist.
TB is curable, but current efforts to find, treat and cure everyone who gets ill with the disease are not sufficient. Of the 9 million people a year who get sick with TB, a third of them are “missed” by health systems.
In 2012, there were an estimated 8.6 million new cases of TB and 1.3 million people died from TB.
Over 95% of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Poor communities and vulnerable groups are most affected, but this airborne disease is a risk to all.
TB is among the top 3 causes of death for women aged 15 to 44.
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