WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2023: Goals of the End TB strategy still a long way off
On 29 October 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its annual tuberculosis report with data from 193 countries on epidemiological trends in 2023. The WHO's goal of eliminating the disease by 2035 as part of the End TB Strategy remains a long way off. The proportion of new cases of tuberculosis (TB) (incidence) fell by just 8.3% between 2015 and 2023, a far cry from the 50% reduction by 2025 envisaged in EndTB.
On a positive note, however, the increase in new TB cases that began during the COVID-19 pandemic has recently stagnated (2023: 10.8 million; 2022: 10.7 million). The incidence rose by 0.2% per 100,000 inhabitants and is therefore largely due to population growth, according to the WHO. Countries such as India (26%), Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), the Philippines (6.8%) and Pakistan (6.3%) had particularly high TB incidences for 2023 and accounted for 56% of the global case numbers. Men (55%) were more likely to contract the disease than women (33%), with children accounting for 12% of cases.
Globally, TB-associated deaths have continued to decline, following the trend from 2022. In 2023, TB is estimated to have caused around 1.25 million deaths (including 1.09 million in HIV-negative people and 161,000 in HIV-positive people) compared to 1.32 million deaths in 2022. While overall TB mortality decreased by 23% between 2015 and 2023, the 75% target of the End TB Strategy by 2025 is unlikely to be achieved.
With regard to multidrug-resistant (MDR-) or rifampicin-resistant (RR-) TB, 175,923 people were diagnosed and treated worldwide in 2023; this corresponds to 44% of the 400,000 people estimated to have developed MDR/RR-TB in that year. The proportion of successful treatments was 88% for sensitive TB and 68% for MDR/RR-TB in 2023.
In summary, the report illustrates the high public health relevance of TB and thus the achievement of the goals of the WHO End TB Strategy, especially as TB is once again becoming the leading cause of death worldwide from a single infectious agent, replacing SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen responsible for COVID-19.
