TB remains an epidemic as world marks TB day
As the world marks the Tuberculosis day, TB today remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of nearly one-and-a-half million people each year, mostly in developing countries.
World TB Day, falling on March 24th commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus.
At the time of Koch’s announcement in Berlin, TB was raging through Europe and the Americas, causing the death of one out of every seven people.
Koch’s discovery opened the way towards diagnosing and curing TB.
On this day World Health Organization (WHO) is calling for new commitments and new action in the global fight against tuberculosis – one of the world’s top infectious killers.
There has been tremendous progress in recent years, and the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal of reversing the spread of TB by 2015. But this is not enough.
In 2013, 9 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died.
However WHO has come up with strategies o how the epidemic can be ended.
Last May, at the, governments agreed on ambitious new 20-year (2016-2035) strategy to end the global TB epidemic.
On World TB Day 2015, WHO called on governments, affected communities, civil society organizations, health-care providers, and international partners to join the drive to roll out this strategy and to reach, treat and cure all those who are ill today.
