Tuberculosis 2015: Burden, Challenges and Strategy for Control and Elimination

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, accounting for about 9.6 million new cases and 1.5 million deaths annually. The poorest and socially excluded groups carry the largest burden of disease, which makes it essential to properly address the social determinants of health through poverty reduction measures and targeted interventions on high-risk populations. The spread of multidrug-resistance TB requires special attention and highlights the need to foster research on TB diagnostics, new drugs and vaccines. Although many advances have been made in the fight against TB over the last twenty years, a lot is still needed to achieve global elimination. The new end-TB strategy that was first launched in 2014 by the World Health Organization, is fully in line with the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals that came into effect since January 2016 and sets ambitious goals for the post-2015 agenda. A 90% reduction in TB-related mortality and an 80% decline in TB incidence within 2030 as well as the abolition of catastrophic expenditures for TB-affected people are the main targets of this strategy. Strong government commitment and adequate financing from all countries together with community engagement and appropriate investments in research are necessary in order to reach these objectives.

Keywords: Tuberculosis control; elimination; end-tuberculosis strategy; tuberculosis epidemiology.

Figure 1.

Percentage of new tuberculosis cases with MDR-T/B, 2015. Reproduced with permission from Global Tuberculosis Report 2015, WHO.

Figure 2.

Trends in tuberculosis incidence (the red line refers to incident cases among HIV-infected persons), prevalence and mortality, 1990-2015. Reproduced with permission from Global Tuberculosis Report 2015, WHO.

Figure 3.

Tuberculosis financing and funding gaps, 2014. Adapted with permission from Global Tuberculosis Report 2015, WHO.