The continuous and sustained effort to combat tuberculosis worldwide is showing results. According to a study carried out by World Health Organization, the number of people affected by this dreadful respiratory disease has come down from 9 million cases registered in 2005 to 8.8 million global cases in 2010.

Global Tuberculosis Control 2011 Report

World Health Organization had launched and directed a study of the cases of tuberculosis from all over the world. Working closely with the governments of each country, WHO managed to account for 99 percent of the world’s TB cases.  The report has analyzed data obtained from 198 countries and the findings are extremely encouraging.

The reports covered the following aspects of the disease and recorded the following facts:

-      Fatalities resulting from TB have declined from 1.8 million recorded in 2003 to 1.4 million in 2011

-      There would be a 50% drop in mortality rates worldwide due to TB, with the exception of Africa, by 2015. At present, the statistics show a decline of about 40.

-      87 percent of people who underwent treatment for TB stayed on the treatment and were cured of TB in 2009. This means 7 million lives have been saved between now and 1995; in this period the cases successfully treated number 46 million.

-      The funding allocated to increase awareness about TB worldwide has increased to 86 percent globally

The Secretary General of United Nations – Ban Ki-moon,  appreciated the excellent progress in the program to fight TB globally and attributed its success to the concerted efforts of the UN and the total cooperation received from each country across the globe. He said that there is still a lot of work to do, especially focusing the drug-resistant TB.

“The challenge now is to build on that commitment, to increase the global effort – and to pay particular attention to the growing threat of multidrug-resistant TB” said Dr Margaret Chan, Director General WHO.

The report pointed  that there is a deep co-relation between TB and HIV infection:

-      People who are affected by both HIV and TB account for 12% of the cases recorded worldwide

-      82% of the HIV affected people developed TB in Africa

-      The percentage of people testing for co-infection in Africa increased to 59%

-      About 50% of TB affected people took antiretrovirals in Africa and 75% took up TB preventive therapy (co-trimoxazole), for which susceptibility to co-infection reduced drastically