an Eldis Resource
Global tuberculosis control: epidemiology, strategy, financing
Assessing the TB epidemic
Authors:
Publisher:
World Health Organization , 2009
This report by The World Health Organisation is the 13th annual report on global control of tuberculosis (TB) it provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the TB epidemic and reports on progress in controlling the disease at global, regional and country levels, in the context of global targets set for 2015. The document describes how the principal targets are that the incidence of TB should be falling by 2015, that TB prevalence and death rates should be halved by 2015 compared with their level in 1990, that at least 70 per cent of incident smear-positive cases should be detected and treated, and that at least 85 per cent of new sputum smear-positive cases should be successfully treated. The report provides analyses of the progress in implementing WHO’s Stop TB Strategy, which is designed to achieve the global targets set for 2015. Examples of how different components of the strategy can be implemented based on recent country experience and which have wider applicability are also highlighted. These include scaling up public–private collaboration in Pakistan, treatment of multidrug-resistant TB in Estonia and Latvia, introducing electronic recording and reporting in Myanmar, and provision of antiretroviral treatment in Africa. Issues concerning the financing of these projects are also considered.
The document shows how the number of incident cases is increasing slowly in absolute terms due to population growth, with 86 per cent of incident cases in Africa and Asia. Nonetheless, the number of incident cases per capita is falling slowly, both globally (with a rate of decline of less than 1 per cent per year) and in all six WHO regions except the European Region. Despite reductions in the global burden of TB, an estimated 37 per cent of cases of smear-positive TB are not being treated in DOTS programmes and the majority of HIV-positive TB cases do not know their HIV status. The authors warn of major funding challenges and argue that in the context of a global financial crisis, closing funding gaps will be a major challenge.
