WHO estimates that about 4.1 million people suffer from tuberculosis but have not been diagnosed or have not been officially declared, a sharp increase in 2.9 million 2019.
Le Monde with AFP
The Covid-19 pandemic canceled years of global progress in the fight against tuberculosis. Tuberculosis deaths, a disease caused by the tuberculous bacillus that most often affects the lungs, are returned for the first time in more than ten years, alerted the World Health Organization (WHO), Thursday, October 14th.
And the situation seems far from improving because a growing number of people do not know that they suffer from the disease, which can be treated and cured, worries WHO, in its annual report on Tuberculosis wears 2020.
WHO estimates that about 4.1 million people suffer from tuberculosis but have not been diagnosed or have not been officially reported, a sharp rise in a total of 2.9 million 2019.
“Global alert signal”
According to the report, there was last year 214,000 deaths due to tuberculosis among HIV-positive people (compared with 209,000 in 2019) and 1.3 million deaths due to tuberculosis among other people (against 1.2 million in 2019). A total of some 1.5 million deaths, a situation that refers the world to 2017, is worried about WHO.
“This report confirms our fears that the disturbance of essential health services due to the pandemic could begin to reduce the years of progress against tuberculosis,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO. , in a statement.
“This is a new alarming that needs to serve as a global alert signal as to the urgent need to invest and innovate to fill gaps in diagnosis, treatment and care for The millions of people affected by this old but preventable and treatable disease, “he added.
The rise in death jeopardizes the WHO strategy which aims to reduce deaths due to disease by 90% and 80% the incidence rate of tuberculosis by 2030, by Report to 2015. However, according to the projections of the organization, the number of people developing tuberculosis and dying of this disease could still be “much higher in 2021 and 2022”.
In addition to the confines that have complicated patient access to care centers, the negative impacts of the pandemic on essential tuberculosis services are numerous, the VIPID-19 vampiring care staff and financial resources and financial resources and Techniques.
Number of people diagnosed in fall
The number of newly diagnosed persons and declared tuberculous by the authorities thus dropped to 5.8 million in 2020, compared with 7.1 million in 2019, which represents a decrease of 18% compared to the level of 2012.
The countries that contributed the most to the global reduction of tuberculosis notifications between 2019 and 2020 are India, Indonesia, the Philippines and China. They have, with twelve other countries, represented 93% of the total global decline in notifications.
The provision of preventive treatments against tuberculosis has also suffered: some 2.8 million people have access it in 2020, a reduction of 21% in one year.
In addition, the number of people neat for drug-resistant tuberculosis decreased by 15% from 177,000 in 2019 to 150,000 in 2020, which is equivalent to only about 1 in 3 people in those who have them need.
Global expenditures on tuberculosis diagnostic, processing and prevention services also declined from $ 5.8 billion (€ 5 billion) to 5.3 billion, which represents less than Half of the global disease funding goal of $ 13 billion a year by 2022.