TB cases rise after years of decline: WHO

Tuberculosis case numbers increased last year for the first time in more than 20 years, fuelled by the Covid-19 pandemic which disrupted access to diagnosis and treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday.

TB has rebounded after years of decline, killing an estimated 1.6 million people in 2021 -- up 14 per cent in two years.

Overtaken by Covid-19 during the worst of the pandemic as the world’s biggest infectious killer, TB claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives in 2020 and 1.4 million in 2019.

Tereza Kasaeva, the director of the UN health agency’s global TB programme, said it was now a “pivotal moment” in the fight against the disease.

“For the first time in nearly two decades, WHO is reporting an increase in the number of people falling ill with TB and the drug-resistant tuberculosis, alongside an increase in TB related deaths,” she said.