World Tuberculosis Day

March 24, 2008

TB (TB-web.jpg)

Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. Photo from CDC/Dr. George P. Kubica. CDC-PHIL ID #5789.

 

World Tuberculosis Day, held annually on March 24, commemorates the date in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, then ravaging Europe and the Americas. World TB Day is meant to raise public awareness about the continuing epidemic in much of the world.

Tuberculosis remains an important threat to global health, but the pace of TB control has slowed according to the World Health Organization. In 2006, 9.2 million new cases were reported with 1.5 million deaths from TB and another 200,000 deaths among people who died from HIV-associated TB. Moreover, there were half a million new cases of multidrug resistant TB reported, and resistance is increasing. Among infectious diseases, TB is the second leading killer after AIDS.

India, China, Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria rank as the top five countries in absolute numbers of cases, while the African region has the highest incidence rate per capita (363 per 100,000 population). 

"TB remains the second largest cause of death from any infectious disease," said Barry R. Bloom, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). "It is a disease that can be prevented and cured, and almost uniquely, adequate treatment of the patient is the best preventive.  It is ominous that drug resistance is increasing, and extremely drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) is essentially untreatable with current drugs.  We need to do better with the drugs we have and, more urgently than ever, we need research to develop new drugs and early diagnostic tools. We are very proud of the work of the School to address the epidemic with new tools for understanding its spread, its genetics and for designing a practical vaccine. This is urgent, compelling work." 

 

See the World Health Organization report: Global Tuberculosis Control 2008 

 

HSPH Research on Tuberculosis