Tuberculosis: An Uneven Burden

Indonesia China Ethiopia Vietnam India Congo DR Afghanistan South Africa Nigeria Myanmar Kenya Thailand Russian Federation Tanzania Brazil Zimbabwe Uganda Mozambique Philippines Pakistan Cambodia Bangladesh Cambodia

The work of the World Lung Foundation and its partners focuses on the 22 countries where 80 percent of the world's tuberculosis cases are concentrated. We are working cooperatively with the national tuberculosis control programs in these countries to implement the Global Plan, and to support the innovative community solutions envisioned in the Global Plan. Please use the map above to find out more about the TB burden of individual countries.

Tuberculosis: A curable disease that still kills two million
people each year

Two billion people - one third of the world's population - are infected with the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. Two million people die from it each year.

Effective drugs to treat and cure the disease have been available for more than 50 years, yet every 15 seconds, someone in the world dies from TB. Even more alarming, a person is newly infected with TB every second of every day. Left untreated, a person with active TB will infect an average of 10 to 15 other people every year.

Eighty percent of the world's tuberculosis cases are concentrated in 22 "high-burden" developing countries, but no corner of the world is safe. Mobile populations, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and an alarming increase in multi-drug resistant strains of the disease prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare tuberculosis a global emergency in 1992. Given that 9 of the 22 high-burden countries are in Africa, and that Africa is home to more than 60% of those living with HIV, African health ministers followed suit by declaring TB an emergency in Africa in 2005.

WHO goals for tuberculosis control were to detect 70% of new infectious TB cases and to cure 85% of them by 2005. But, despite prodigious local and international efforts, only about seven high-burden countries will likely attain these goals. In fact, the most recent data shows that globally, only 53% of new infectious cases are detected.

Rather than being discouraged, the international community has re-invigorated its work to stop TB. WHO, the STOP TB Partnership, and other national and international agencies have developed an ambitious ten-year plan that will lay the groundwork for the eventual eradication of TB. Implementation of this Global Plan to Stop TB 2006-2015 will save 14 million lives in the next decade. The Foundation will continue to work with its partners to meet - and to exceed - these targets.