Today is World TB Day. It falls on 24 March every year – the purpose is to raise public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic impact of tuberculosis (TB) and urge acceleration of efforts to end the global TB epidemic.
Editor’s note:
This article first appeared in HalenessMe2018.wordpress.com as the final piece in a 6-part series leading up to World TB Day today.
Hope you’ll find some time to read the series to learn more about tuberculosis.
TB was one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide in 2016, ranking above HIV and malaria.
One of the targets of WHO’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 is to end the global TB epidemic.
About one third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis (TB) bacteria.
Only a small proportion of those infected will become sick with TB.
People with weakened immune systems have a much greater risk of falling ill from TB.
A person living with HIV is about 26 to 31 times more likely to develop active TB.
The WHO “End TB Strategy”, approved by the World Health Assembly in 2014, calls for a 90% reduction in TB deaths and an 80% reduction in the TB incidence rate by 2030, compared with 2016.
New data from WHO reveal that the global TB burden is higher than previously estimated.
Countries need to move much faster to prevent, detect and treat TB if the “End TB Strategy” targets are to be achieved in the next 15 years.
This write-up was extracted from the TB website published by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Tags: awareness, campaigns, education, health, tuberculosis, WHO, WorldTBDay, WorldTBDay2018