The World Health Organization is now re-evaluating its estimate of the number of people who are currently affected by tuberculosis by up to 500,000. In 2013, tuberculosis had reportedly killed nearly 1.5 million people while affecting about 9 million others around the world. This is a significant increase from the 1.3 dead and 8.6 million affected originally reported in 2012.
The WHO said that this highlights a "staggering number of lives that are being lost to a curable disease and confirms that tuberculosis is the second biggest killer disease from a single infectious agent." The agency attributes the improved system for national data collection for the up-to-date revision of the current number of cases.
The numbers seem to suggest that there has been a long-term decline in the incidences of the disease but now, experts are saying that there were about 3 million people in 2013 who had tuberculosis but remained undiagnosed, which is one of the biggest issues that organizations face while addressing the disease. "The fact that 3 million people are missing out on treatment every year explains why there are still so many avoidable deaths from tuberculosis," said Mike Mandelbaum, WHO TB Alert chief. He added that, "By strengthening health systems, especially in high incidence countries, we can turn the tide of this global epidemic and finally move into sight of eradicating this disease."
Dr. Karin Weyer, the coordinator for WHO laboratories, diagnostics, and drug-resistant's division, said that, "Improved diagnostic tools and access mean that we are detecting and treating more cases. But the gap between detecting and actually getting people started on treatment is widening and we urgently need increased commitment and funding to test and treat every case."
Another factor that is playing a role in the increase of tuberculosis cases is drug resistance, which has accounted for 3.5% of new cases in 2013. Additionally, there is an estimated 5% of all tuberculosis cases around the world that are considered to be drug-resistant. Dr. Grania Brigden, from the organization Drs. without Borders, said that, "Access to proper treatment is drastically low: only one person in five with multi-drug-resistant TB receives treatment; the rest are left to die, increasing the risk to their families and communities and fueling the epidemic."
