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Interesting Facts and Statistics about Tuberculosis

What is Tuberculosis?

Tuberculosis is an infection caused by the bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacterium doesn’t just affect the lungs but can also attack other organs and parts of the body like the brain, kidneys and spine. Treatment for tuberculosis can be quite effective, provided the treatment is strictly adhered to in terms of medications and dosages, as well as the duration of treatment. Failure to treat the disease appropriately often spells disaster as it greatly increases the risk of fatality. As in the case of almost all infectious diseases, the adverse effects of tuberculosis are highest in developing and underdeveloped countries, where huge sections of the population live in extreme poverty (1✔).

Tuberculosis Facts

While tuberculosis is highly contagious, it does not pose a grave public health risk. While public awareness is important to prevent spread of the infection and to effectively treat existing cases, it is not a cause for panic. To put things in perspective here are some interesting facts and statistics on tuberculosis.

Statistical Data on Tuberculosis

  1. According to the WHO, a third of mankind is infected with the tuberculosis bacteria, but just a small fraction of those infected actually develop and suffer from tuberculosis.
  2. Anyone who is at high risk should get tested however, as latent infections may turn active in some cases. According to estimates from WHO, up to 10% of all those with latent TB infections will develop active TB (2✔).
  3. Although tuberculosis is curable, the disease has the highest fatality rate after HIV, The disease kills more than 1400 people each day (3✔).
  4. The risk of tuberculosis is much higher for individuals with a weakened immune system, which is why a patient with HIV is more likely to develop active TB.
  5. The odds of an HIV patient developing an active infection risk as being 15 to 21 times higher as compared to a healthy adult (4✔).
  6. Tuberculosis in children is a huge problem as tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment is a lot more complicated when dealing with children.
  7. In addition, children also suffer on account of adult tuberculosis fatalities, which have resulted in around 10 million orphans. Every day about 700 children die from tuberculosis (5✔).
  8. Sadly, the burden of tuberculosis rests heaviest on those who can least afford it. Every year 8 million people suffer from active tuberculosis globally and 2 million people succumb to the disease (6✔).
  9. The greatest per capital rate of infection is recorded in the South-East Asia region with 45% in 2021. The rates of other countries are Africa (23%), Western Pacific (18%), Eastern Mediterranean (8.1%), Americas (2.9%), and Europe (2.2%) (7✔).
  10. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis has become increasingly problematic in recent years and around 500,000 people were afflicted with this variant of the disease every year (8✔).

Disease Facts

  1. If the infection is not treated, a patient with an active infection is believed to help spread the disease by infecting an average of 10 to 15 people in a year.
  2. Tuberculosis tests for diagnosis are conducted with both skin and blood tests. Testing is critical to control the disease as the bacteria may remain dormant, as in case of a latent infection, and can be killed with appropriate treatment.
  3. Treatment is essential to ensure the infection does not become active. Active tuberculosis requires antibiotic treatment that spans four to nine months (9✔).
  4. A patient infected with both HIV and tuberculosis is four times more likely to succumb to the disease during treatment, as compared to someone who only has a tuberculosis infection.
  5. Effective treatment for tuberculosis in HIV patients is still feasible, as studies have found that the additional treatment with cotrimoxazole (an antibiotic) can lower the death rate during treatment by as much as 40%.
  6. Most cases of multidrug resistant TB develop as a result of patients abandoning treatment or neglecting dosage recommendations midway through treatment.

Encouraging Facts

  1. The “Stop TB Strategy” was part of the initiative to drive down the economic costs and death rate from TB by providing universal access to diagnostic and treatment facilities for TB patients.
  2. There has been a marked decline in TB cases in both China and Brazil, with China observing a remarkable 80% decline in TB deaths (9✔).

Interesting Facts

  1. A quarter of all deaths in Europe are estimated to have been caused by tuberculosis infection during the 19th and early 20th century (10✔).
  2. Tuberculosis was commonly referred to as consumption because of the symptoms of wasting away with pronounced weight loss (11✔).
  3. French bacteriologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin created the first tuberculosis vaccine in 1921 using a live strain of the bacteria. In their honor, the vaccine was christened the bacille Calmette-Guerin or BCG. The vaccine first came to be widely used in Europe and South America in 1930.
  4. After having been in decline for decades, tuberculosis began to raise its ugly head during the 1980s and was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization in 1993.