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CINU. United Nations Information Center.

October 13, 2016

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned today that if countries want to meet their global commitments in the fight against tuberculosis, they need to rapidly increase prevention, detection and treatment of the disease.

During the launch of the Tuberculosis Global Report 2016, WHO reminded that governments committed to the United Nations to reduce 90% deaths and 80% of disease cases by 2030.

WHO director, Margaret Chan, said that it will take a massive increase of efforts so the countries are not left behind suffering from the mortal epidemic and without reaching their ambitious goals.

WHO also highlighted great inequalities between countries regarding access to diagnosis and to cost effective disease treatments.

WHO report shows that there were almost 10.5 million new cases of the disease in 2015 and that 6 countries had 60% of them, led by India.

It also estimates that during the same year, around 2 million people died from the disease and although the deaths declined by 22% between 2000 and 2015, tuberculosis caused more deaths than HIV and malaria.

WHO stated that detection is still a big challenge, explaining that out of 10,5 million new cases only 6 million were detected and officially reported.

Regarding care and prevention of the disease, investment in low and middle income countries during 2016 amounts to 2.000 million below 8.300 needed.

According to WHO, that gap will expand to 6.000 million dollars in 2020, if current funding levels are not increased.

With information from  Centro de Noticias de la ONU