TB epidemic in India larger than estimated, says WHO

An estimated 10.4 million new TB cases were recorded worldwide in 2015, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. Tuberculosis epidemic in India is “larger” than what was previously estimated, the WHO said while asserting that the country was one of six nations which accounted for 60 per cent of the new cases in 2015.

Six countries that accounted for 60 per cent of the new cases are India, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.

Importantly, there was a 50 per cent increase in deaths of children from TB, with 210,000 reported to have died of the disease in 2015.

The report also notes that, in 2015, the number of people who died from TB grew to 1.8 million from 1.5 million in 2014.

“The dismal progress in the TB response is a tragedy for the millions of people suffering from this disease,” WHO’s TB progr-amme director Mario Rav-iglione said in a statement.

“To save more lives, we must get newly-recommended rapid tests, drugs and regimens to those who need them. Current actions and investments fall far short of what is needed.”

Some 1.8 million people died from TB last year, of whom 0.4 million were co-infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

The report noted that while global TB deaths have fallen by 22 per cent between 2000 and 2015, the disease was still one of the top 10 causes of death globally in 2015.

Greg Elder of the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the figures constituted “a shockingly bad report card.”

WHO director-general Margaret Chan said: “There must be a massive scale-up of efforts, or countries will continue to run behind this deadly epidemic.”