World Tuberculosis Day, 24 March 2013

World Health Organisation
March 24, 2013, 8:03 p.m.

World TB Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about the burden of tuberculosis worldwide and the status of TB prevention and control efforts. It is also an opportunity to mobilize political and social commitment for further progress.

Progress towards global targets for reductions in TB cases and deaths in recent years has been impressive: TB mortality has fallen over 40% worldwide since 1990, and incidence is declining. New TB tools such as rapid diagnostics are helping transform response to the disease.

But the global burden remains huge and significant challenges persist:

in 2011, there were an estimated 8.7 million new cases of TB and 1.4 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 three causes of death for women aged 15 to 44;
there were an estimated 0.5 million cases and 64 000 deaths among children in 2011;
there is slow progress in tackling multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB): with 60 000 patients enrolled in treatment by end 2011 – this is only one in five of the notified TB patients estimated to have MDR-TB;
provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for TB patients known to be living with HIV needs to double to meet WHO’s recommendation that all TB patients living with HIV promptly receive ART; and
the African and European regions are not on track to meet the target of halving deaths from TB between 1990 and 2015.

Stop TB in My Lifetime

2013 is the second year of a two-year campaign for World TB Day, with the slogan “Stop TB in My Lifetime”.

WHO and the Stop TB Partnership, hosted at WHO, are together promoting World TB Day. World TB Day provides the opportunity for affected persons and the communities in which they live, civil society organizations, health-care providers, and other partners to discuss and plan further collaboration to fulfil the promise of stopping TB in our lifetimes through advocacy and action.

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Source: WHO