Tuberculosis (TB) is the world’s leading infectious disease killer, responsible for 1.6 million deaths a year. New tests, medicines, and preventive therapies can turn the tide on TB, but their impact will be limited if we do not urgently address the access barriers that stand in the way of getting these lifesaving health products to the people who need them.
10 million
More than 10 million people fell ill with TB in 2022
3 million
Each year, 3 million people with TB go undiagnosed and untreated
2 out of 3
children with TB are never diagnosed and nearly all those who die were never treated
400000
400,000 people have drug-resistant TB but only 2 in 5 access treatment
Though children are highly vulnerable to TB infection, their care has been largely neglected. Diagnostic tests, built to detect TB in adults, are often ineffective in children and a lack of systematic screening of sick children for TB risk factors leaves many children undiagnosed and therefore, never treated.
When a child does receive a diagnosis, insufficient information on medicine dosage and easy-to-swallow child formulations complicated child TB treatment for decades. And effective prevention regimens – which can clear TB infection before illness develops – are not reaching millions of children who are at risk.
The lack of a simple, effective, same-day diagnostic test for TB, available at the primary health care level, means that many people never get a diagnosis, never access treatment, and the disease continues to spread. Diagnosing drug-resistant TB is even more challenging, costly and slow. Untreated, a person with TB can spread the disease to 10-15 others in a year.
Though treatment options have radically improved in the past decade, TB treatment still takes months, requires frequent clinic visits and can cause difficult side effects. This can lead people to abandon treatment, which can cause the illness to return and can contribute to drug resistance.
Though preventive treatments can clear a TB infection before it develops into active disease, many people at highest risk still do not have access. Widespread contact tracing is needed to reach vulnerable groups, such as children or others who have been exposed to the infection, with effective preventive care.
We are committed to ensuring that new TB medicines can benefit everyone, preventive treatments reach the most at-risk populations, and TB testing is quick, accurate and accessible where it is needed most.
