The
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s TB Centre recently released its biennial report about tuberculosis around the world.
An estimated 9.6 million people developed TB in 2014, with approximately 1.5 million people fatalities. It is one of the deadliest diseases in the world, killing more people globally than other illnesses.
Fortunately, significant progress has been made against the disease. Since 2000, rates of newly diagnosed TB cases have decreased approximately 1.5 percent every year. This makes eliminating TB by 2030 — a target listed in the Sustainable Development Goals — feasible.
At the TB Centre, there are over 120 clinicians, statisticians, laboratory scientists, epidemiologists, policy-makers and public health specialists working to end TB. The goal is to decrease TB’s worldwide burden by using education, research and knowledge translation.
Even though researchers have made notable progress in eliminating TB, there is still much work to be done.. Even some first-world countries have seen a recent rise in TB which is attributed to several factors, including multi drug-resistant TB and its global spread.
