Tuberculosis care and control ‘has saved 20m lives’

A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) has shed light on the number of lives that have been saved as a direct result of tuberculosis (TB) care and control efforts.

Over the last 17 years, around 51 million people have been successfully treated and cared for in accordance with WHO recommendations, thus preventing the deaths of around 20 million people.

This achievement is also down to the cooperation and leadership displayed by various international organisations and endemic countries, with Cambodia in particular seeing a 45 percent drop in TB prevalence between 2002 and 2011.

However, the WHO warned that further efforts need to be made in order to maintain this progress, while a research and disease control funding shortfall of almost $4.5 billion (2.81 billion pounds) needs to be addressed.

Dr Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO Stop TB department, said: "The momentum to break this disease is in real danger. We are now at a crossroads between TB elimination within our lifetime and millions more TB deaths."

Data from the NHS shows that 9,040 cases of TB were reported in the UK in 2009, with most of these occurring in urban centres, particularly London.