Global TB report

Tuberculosis (TB) is a communicable disease that is a major cause of ill health and one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, tuberculosis (TB) was the most common infectious disease to cause death, surpassing HIV/AIDS.

90% of those who encounter the illness do so as adults, and men are more likely than women to be affected. A quarter of the world's population has M. tuberculosis infection. TB is treatable and avoidable. A 6-month treatment regimen can effectively treat 85% of persons who have TB disease, and regimens of 1-6 months can be used to treat TB infection.

To guarantee that everyone who has an illness or infection may receive these medicines, universal health coverage (UHC) is required. Through multisectoral efforts to address TB determinants such as poverty, undernutrition, HIV infection, smoking, and diabetes, the number of persons getting infections and developing diseases (and thus the number of deaths caused by TB) can also be decreased.

Some nations have already managed to lower the incidence of TB to less than 10 cases and less than 1 fatality per 100 000 people annually. To quickly bring the number of new cases per year (TB incidence) down to the levels already attained in these low-burden nations, research breakthroughs (such as a new vaccine) are required.

This report's goal is to present a thorough and current assessment of the TB epidemic's state as well as developments in national, regional, and global efforts to combat it within the framework of international commitments, strategies, and goals. A preliminary evaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on TB services, the burden of the disease, and target progress, This 2021 edition offers updated, conclusive, and comprehensive results.

This report's goal is to present a thorough and current assessment of the TB epidemic's state as well as developments in national, regional, and global efforts to combat it within the framework of international commitments, strategies, and goals. A preliminary evaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on TB services, the burden of the disease, and target progress, This 2021 edition offers updated, conclusive, and comprehensive results.

Top conclusions and takeaways from the 2021 report

Top conclusions and takeaways from the 2021 report

Years of progress in providing crucial TB services and lowering the burden of TB disease have been undone by the COVID-19 epidemic. Despite some country and regional success stories, the global TB targets are largely off course. The most noticeable effect is a significant global decline in the number of newly diagnosed cases of TB that are reported. This decreased from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020, a fall of 18% that brought it back to its 2012 level and was considerably below the estimated 10 million new cases of TB that year. 93% of this reduction was accounted for by 16 nations, with India, Indonesia, and the Philippines suffering the most. According to preliminary data through June 2021, there are still gaps.

An increase in TB deaths has been caused by decreased access to TB diagnosis and treatment. According to the best projections, TB fatalities will increase by 1.3 million among HIV-negative individuals in 2020 (up from 1.2 million in 2019) and by an additional 214 000 among HIV-positive people (up from 209 000 in 2019), bringing the overall number back to 2017. The reductions in TB incidence (the number of cases per year) that were made in previous years have almost completely stopped. In 2021 and 2022, these effects are expected to be significantly severe.

Other effects include decreases in the number of individuals receiving drug-resistant TB treatment between 2019 and 2020 (-15%, from 177 100 to 150 359, approximately 1 in 3 of those in need) and TB preventive treatment (-21%, from 3.6 million to 2.8 million), as well as a decrease in global spending on TB diagnostic, treatment, and prevention services (from US$ 5.8 billion to US$ 5.3 billion, less than half of what is needed). There is an immediate need for actions to reduce and counteract these effects. The top objective right now is to reestablish access to and supply of critical TB services so that, especially in the most severely affected nations, rates of TB case identification and treatment can rise to at least 2019 levels.

Additionally, data on monthly or quarterly case notifications of individuals newly diagnosed with TB in 2020 were gathered in February and March 2021 from 84 countries that collectively account for about 90% of all TB cases worldwide. Since April 2021, such data have been continuously requested from more than 100 nations, with real-time representations of all reported data being made available. These data have been essential for early monitoring of the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on TB case detection as well as for informing projections of the burden of TB disease in 2020 and beyond.