London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Countries need to act much faster to prevent, detect and treat tuberculosis (TB) in order to meet global targets, according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) Global TB Report. The 2016 report shows that the TB burden is higher than previously estimated, reflecting new surveillance and survey data from India where there has been a 34% increase in notifications in India. 

Globally in 2015 there were an estimated 10.4 million new cases of TB and 1.8 million deaths (of whom 0.4 million were co-infected with HIV). Just six countries accounted for 60% of the total burden: India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria.

Even though deaths have fallen by 22% between 2000-2015 and response efforts saved an approximate 3 million lives in 2015, it remains the top infectious disease killer in the world.

The report suggests that to reach the World Health Assembly target of reducing deaths by 90% from current levels by 2030, there needs to be improvements in reducing the inequalities in diagnosis and treatment interventions, bolstered by political commitment and funding.

Just 6.1 million of the 10.4 million cases were detected and officially notified in 2015 and this major gap is down to major barriers to care access. It is predicted that for TB care and prevention, the investments in low and middle-income countries fall almost $2bn short of the $8.3bn needed this year. The annual gap is set to widen to $6bn dollars in 2020 if current funding levels do not increase.

Commenting on the WHO report, Dr Rein Houben, Associate Professor in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said: "TB is by far the world's leading infectious disease killer and this report highlights the scale of the global public health emergency. There is still a concerning lack of urgency in preventing, detecting and treating a disease that kills around 1.8 million people each year - more than AIDS and malaria. 

 "In this report we see new figures from India, which show that our challenge is likely to be even bigger than previously thought. We need to significantly increase the rate of reduction in cases if we are to reach the World Health Assembly targets set for 2020 and beyond.

 "More investment in day-to-day TB care and prevention is urgently needed, particularly in low and middle-income countries. However, to make real progress towards the reduction targets, it is critical that there is also increased funding for research and development. Not only do we need to develop new tools and approaches for tackling TB, but also effective ways of rolling these out among the people who really need them.

 "Without a concerted effort between researchers, funders, health providers and policy makers, we are never going to get this deadly disease under control."

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's TB Centre is the largest collection of researchers working on TB in Europe. Experts from a range of disciplines work on many aspects of the disease, including modelling the spread of TB and the impact of interventions, tracing of transmission using molecular tools, health systems research and the development of new vaccines and diagnostics.

Related links

• TB Centre - London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• Ending TB: the race to control a disease in hiding

Related courses

• Infectious Disease by Distance Learning (Certificate, Diploma and MSc)