The current tuberculosis situation in Germany and worldwide

In December 2023, the Robert Koch Institute published its annual report on the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in Germany. In 2022, a total of 4,076 patients were newly diagnosed with tuberculosis in Germany. This corresponds to an incidence of 4.9 new cases/100,000 inhabitants. For the first time since 2016, there was a slight increase in TB case numbers of 3.5%. Demographically, men (with an incidence of 6.5/100,000 inhabitants, almost twice as often as women) and young adults in the 25 to 29 age group (incidence of 10.7/100,000) were once again among the groups most frequently affected by TB in 2022. New cases among children have also risen in parallel to new cases among adults: In 2022, a total of 190 children contracted TB (incidence of 1.6/100,000), most commonly infants under the age of 5.

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The incidence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB has also risen significantly in parallel with the total number of cases. Compared to the previous year (2021: 77 cases, 2.6%), the number of MDR-TB cases more than doubled in 2022 (166 cases, 5.7%), with the highest proportion among patients born in one of the post-Soviet states (29.8% vs. 1.7% among those born in Germany). Pre-extensively resistant (pre-XDR-TB) and XDR-TB occurred in 33 and 4 cases respectively. The current statistics on tuberculosis cases are recorded by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which evaluates and publishes them in the Epidemiological Report at the end of the following year. On World Tuberculosis Day, which takes place every year on March 24, the RKI publishes a bulletin on tuberculosis in which the statistically recorded case numbers of the previous year are presented.

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According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), around 10.8 million people worldwide contracted tuberculosis in 2023. This still represents a slight increase of 0.2% compared to the previous year. The restrictions in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be cited as the reason for this. As a result, the number of deaths from tuberculosis also increased, but fell again slightly to 1.25 million deaths in 2023. This makes tuberculosis one of the ten most common causes of death worldwide. The countries most affected are India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where two thirds of the world's tuberculosis sufferers live.

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For the patients affected, the disease often means a social and financial problem in addition to the health impairment. The WHO has set itself the goal of ending the global tuberculosis epidemic by 2035 and has developed the End TB strategy to achieve this.