Tuberculosis has once again spread around the world, due to Covid-19 and its confinements, which have limited testing and access to care – warned the World Health Organization (WHO), this Thursday (27), estimating that 1.6 million people died from the disease last year.
According to the WHO annual report, 10.6 million people had this disease in 2021, caused by a bacterium that mainly attacks the lungs. This represents an increase of 4.5% in one year.
The disease incidence rate (new cases per 100,000 population per year) increased by 3.6% between 2020 and 2021, after having declined by around 2% per year for much of the last two decades.
This rate increased between 2020 and 2021 worldwide, with the exception of Africa, where disruptions to health services due to the Covid-19 pandemic had little impact on the number of people diagnosed.
Globally, the estimated annual number of deaths from tuberculosis declined between 2005 and 2019, but estimates for 2020 and 2021 suggest that this trend has reversed.
The WHO estimates 1.6 million deaths last year, a return to the 2017 level. This represents an increase of more than 14% from 2019, when this contagious disease killed 1.4 million people. The number rose to 1.5 million in 2020.
Most of the increase in deaths was recorded last year in four countries: India, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.
The dominance of drug-resistant tuberculosis has also increased — by 3% between 2020 and 2021 — with 450,000 new cases of rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in 2021.
Poverty and malnutrition
According to the WHO, “this is the first time in many years that an increase in the number of sick people with tuberculosis and drug-resistant tuberculosis has been reported”.
The Covid-19 pandemic has considerably slowed progress in the fight against this disease. The spread of tuberculosis jeopardizes the strategy established by the WHO, which aims to reduce deaths from the disease by 90%, and the incidence rate, by 80%, by 2030, compared to 2015.
The organization does not lose hope, although it estimates that tuberculosis will have continued its progression in 2022.
“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that, with solidarity, determination, innovation and the equitable use of tools, we can overcome serious health threats. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The WHO stresses that it is even more urgent to act in the context of the war in Ukraine, conflicts in other parts of the world, the global energy crisis and the risks associated with food security, as these elements may “further exacerbate some of the determinants of tuberculosis, such as income levels and malnutrition”.
Tuberculosis was the 13th leading cause of death worldwide in 2019, and the first from an infectious disease. It was surpassed in 2020 by Covid-19, but still ahead of AIDS, the report indicates.
The majority of tuberculosis cases last year were reported in Southeast Asia (45%), Africa (23%) and the Western Pacific region (18%). Eight countries account for more than two-thirds of global cases: India, Indonesia, China, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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