Global TB Report 2023:
The World Health Organization (WHO) has released the Global Tuberculosis (TB) report 2023, highlighting the high burden of TB worldwide in 2022.
- India accounted for the highest number of TB cases in the world in 2022, with 2.8 million TB cases, representing 27% of the global burden.
Key Findings of the Global TB Report 2023:
- It was the world’s second leading cause of death from a single infectious agent in 2022, following Covid-19.
- TB caused almost twice as many deaths as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome stage (AIDS).
- More than 10 million people continue to fall ill with TB every year.
- 30 high burden TB countries collectively accounted for 87% of the world’s TB cases in 2022.
- Among the top eight high burden countries, in addition to India, are Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- In 2022, 7.5 million people were diagnosed with TB, marking the highest figure recorded since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995.
- Without treatment, the death rate from TB disease is high, at about 50%.
- However, with treatments currently recommended by WHO (a 4–6 months course of anti-TB drugs), about 85% of people with TB can be cured.
- There is a positive global recovery in the number of people diagnosed with TB and treated in 2022, following two years of Covid-19-related disruptions.
- Countries like India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, accounted for over 60% of the global reductions.
- The TB incidence rate, which measures new cases per 100,000 population per year, increased by 3.9% between 2020 and 2022.
- This increase reversed the declining trend of about 2% per year that had been observed for most of the past two decades.
- India reported a case fatality ratio of 12%, indicating that 12% of TB cases in the country resulted in death.
- The report estimates that 3,42,000 TB-related deaths occurred in India in 2022, with 3,31,000 among HIV-negative individuals and 11,000 among those with HIV.
- India recorded 1.1 lakh cases of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in 2022, highlighting the continued challenge of MDR-TB as a public health crisis.
