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The World Health Organisation’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2016, published today, shows that TB – already the world’s deadliest infectious disease – just got deadlier, with more cases, more deaths and more drug-resistance.
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According to the report, there were an estimated 10.4 million new TB cases worldwide and 1.8 million deaths in 2015. This is a 20% revision upwards from last year’s figures.
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The report also highlighted that drug-resistant TB continues to represent a global threat. Almost 580,000 people were estimated to have drug-resistant TB in 2015, up from less than half a million in 2014.
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Earlier this year, the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance called for TB to be the cornerstone of the global AMR response. The Review estimated that TB has the potential to cause a quarter of all deaths from drug resistant infections by 2050, with one person dying from the disease every 12 seconds and a cost to the global economy of more than $16.7 trillion over the next 35 years.
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The WHO’s report serves as a reminder of why international action on TB is so urgently needed.
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The full report is available here: http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/