Tuberculosis today

Together with AIDS, tuberculosis shares the first place in the list of lethal diseases.

• It is estimated that 15 to 20 million people in the world suffer from tuberculosis.
• Between 8 and 10 million people fall prey to it each year. Only half of them are detected.
• A third of the world's population is infected by the TB bacterium.
• Up to two million people die from tuberculosis each year.
• Most of them are aged 15-44.

The world rejoiced too soon !

Thirty years ago, we seemed to have the disease more or less under control. An efficient treatment existed and conquering the disease seemed to be a matter of time. Interest ebbed away just as investment did to fight the disease.

Then, drug resistant disease emerged in New York. An increasing number of cases were signalled in the former Soviet Union as well as a significant deterioration linked to the AIDS situation in Subsaharan Africa. In 1993, the WHO declared tuberculosis to be a worldwide emergency.

Find out more about the international approach.

Poverty, lack of access to high-quality, affordable health care, AIDS, displaced populations, increasing resistance to first-line drug, the socio-economic crisis, were all factors which played a part in favouring the development of tuberculosis.