1.3 million deaths from tuberculosis last year, warns WHO

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said people have died from TB for millennia without hope of treatment. 'Today, we have knowledge and tools they could only have dreamed of.' Picture: Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP

Access to treatment for tuberculosis around the world is recovering from the effects of the pandemic shutdowns, but there were still 1.3 million deaths from this disease last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

The WHO called for “all hands on deck” to boost investment in fighting this disease, the world’s second leading infectious killer last year.

There were 222 cases in Ireland, a slight increase from the year before, separate data shows.

The WHO, in a report published on Tuesday, identified a “significant worldwide recovery” in diagnosis and treatment levels globally.

“It shows an encouraging trend starting to reverse the detrimental effects of covid-19 disruptions on TB services,” the world body said.

Its data also shows, however, during the first two years of the pandemic nearly half a million more people died from TB than expected.

WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said people have died from this disease for millennia without hope of treatment.

“Today, we have knowledge and tools they could only have dreamed of,” he said.

“We have political commitment, and we have an opportunity that no generation in the history of humanity has had: the opportunity to write the final chapter in the story of TB.” 

Overall, the WHO warned: “Less than half of the funding targeted for TB service delivery and research was mobilised”.

WHO Global TB programme director Dr Tereza Kasaeva said world leaders made “strong commitments with concrete targets” for progress at the second UN High-Level Meeting on TB.

“We need all hands on deck to make the vision of ending TB a reality,” she urged.

So, for example, the net decrease in deaths between 2015 and last year was just 19% when the WHO goal is 75% reduction by 2025.

Last year, there were 1.3 million TB-related deaths, down from 1.4 million in 2021. TB continues to be the leading killer among people with HIV.

Some 7.5 million people were newly diagnosed with TB last year, the highest number since monitoring began in 1995 across 192 countries and areas.

The jump was linked to better access to health services in countries including India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

An estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2022, up from 10.3 million in 2021.

Most cases were in South-East Asia (46%), Africa (23%) and the Western Pacific (18%), with smaller proportions in the Eastern Mediterranean (8.1%), the Americas (3.1%), and Europe (2.2%).

They also warned multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis.

“While an estimated 410, 000 people developed multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant TB (MDR/RR-TB) in 2022, only about two in five people accessed treatment,” the WHO found.

In Ireland, TB treatment is free through public health systems, but across many countries the WHO warned 50% of patients globally face “catastrophic” costs and income loss.

Separate Irish data shows 20 people with TB died between 2019 and 2021, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.