Tuberculosis replaces HIV/AIDS as most infectious

Tuberculosis has replaced HIV/AIDS as the world’s most deadly infectious disease, the World Health Organisation has revealed. According to the World Tuberculosis report 2015, TB killed 1.5 million people in 2014 with India, Indonesia and China having largest number of cases: 23 per cent, 10 per cent and 10 per cent of the global total, respectively.

While, the number of new and relapse TB cases notified in India reached 1.61 million in 2014, a 29 per cent increase compared with 1.24 million in 2013, in 2014, public sector medical college hospitals in India alone reported 176,000 TB cases, the report found. Unfortunately, most of the XDR TB cases in 2014 were notified from India (1262, up from 392 in 2013), Ukraine (657), South Africa (562), Belarus (431), and Kazakhstan (318). Globally, 4044 patients with XDR-TB were enrolled on treatment (higher than the level of 3284 in 2013).

Citing the steep rise in TB case notifications from private sector care providers in India between 2013 and 2014 (from 85,000 to 195,000 in 2014) “impressive”, the report explained that for the first time since 2007, there was a noticeable increase in global TB notifications in 2014 (these had stabilised at around 5.7-5.8 million new and relapse cases for 2007–2013). “The increase is explained by a 29 per cent increase in notifications in India, linked to the introduction of a policy of mandatory notification,” the report added.

However, globally, TB prevalence in 2015 was 42 per cent lower than in 1990. In fact, the target of halving the rate compared with 1990 was achieved in three WHO regions — the Region of the Americas, the South-East Asia Region and the Western Pacific Region — and in nine high-burden countries (Brazil, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Uganda and Vietnam). “ All three of the 2015 targets (for incidence, prevalence and mortality) were met in nine high-burden countries – Brazil, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Uganda and Vietnam.

TB killed an estimated 1.5 million people in 2013- making it the world’s second-leading cause of death from an infectious disease. One in three people worldwide are living with a latent TB infection that could develop into active TB disease at some point in their lives. Six of the 10 countries projected to have the greatest numbers of people living with diabetes by the year 2035—China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Russian Federation—are also classified as high TB-burden countries by the World Health Organization.