World Tuberculosis Day 2018

Falling on March 24^th each year, World TB day is designed to build public awareness that tuberculosis today remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of nearly one and a half million people each year, mostly in developing countries.

Last year, WHO reported that 10.4 million people fell ill with TB and there were 1.8 million TB deaths in 2016, making it the top infectious killer worldwide. This disease is deeply rooted in populations where human rights and dignity are limited. While anyone can contract TB, the disease thrives among people living in poverty, communities and groups that are marginalized, and other vulnerable populations.

These include:

• Migrants 
• Refugees 
• Ethnic minorities 
• Miners (and others working and living in risk-prone settings)
• The elderly 
• Marginalized women and children in many settings etc.
• Factors such as malnutrition, poor housing and sanitation
• Tobacco and alcohol use
• Diabetes affect vulnerability to TB and access to care.

Furthermore, this access is often hindered by catastrophic costs associated with illness, seeking and staying in care, and lack of social protection, resulting in a vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health. The transmission of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) adds great urgency to these concerns.

It commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacterium. At the time of Koch’s announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through the United States and Europe, causing the death of 1 in 7 people. Koch’s discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB.

Theme:

The theme of World TB Day 2018 - “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-free world”- focuses on building commitment to end TB, not only at the political level with Heads of State and Ministers of Health, but at all levels from Mayors, Governors, parliamentarians and community leaders, to people affected with TB, civil society advocates, health workers, doctors or nurses, NGOs and other partners. All can be leaders of efforts to end TB in their own work or terrain.

This is a critical theme, given the political importance of the upcoming UN General Assembly high-level meeting on TB this year, which will bring together Heads of State in New York. It follows on from a very successful Ministerial Conference on Ending TB in Moscow on 16-17 November 2017 which resulted in high-level commitments from Ministers and other leaders from 120 countries to accelerate progress to end TB.

World TB Day provides the opportunity to shine the spotlight on the disease and mobilize political and social commitment for accelerate progress to end TB.

Despite significant progress over the last decades, TB continues to be the top infectious killer worldwide, claiming over 4 500 lives a day. The emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) poses a major health security threat and could risk gains made in the fight against TB.