During The Pandemic Tuberculosis Deaths Increased, Reversing Years Of Decline: WHO Report

According to World Health Organization's report, around 10.6 million people fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) in 2021, an increase of 4.5% from 2020, and 1.6 million people died from TB (including 187 000 among HIV-positive people).
The burden of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) also increased by 3% between 2020 and 2021, with 450 000 new cases of rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB) in 2021.
The increase reversed years of decline as the COVID-19 pandemic severely derailed efforts to tackle the disease, WHO said.
Global efforts to tackle deadly diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The health crisis has particularly hit the response to TB and led countries to fall behind in meeting targets to curb the infectious disease.
The reported number of people newly diagnosed with TB fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020. There was a partial recovery to 6.4 million in 2021, but this was still well below pre-pandemic levels.
The report notes a decline in global spending on essential TB services from $6 billion in 2019 to $5.4 billion in 2021, which is less than half the global target of $13 billion annually by 2022.
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