The World Tuberculosis Day is celebrated on the 24th of March each year under a variety of themes. The main objective of this day is to raise public awareness of the global epidemic of tuberculosis and of how to eliminate this disease. But what is Tuberculosis? Tuberculosis (TB) is a communicable disease. According to WHO, it is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent (ranking above HIV/AIDS). It is caused by the Bacillus Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, which is spread when people who are sick with TB expel bacteria into the air; for example, by coughing. This illness would majorly affect on human lungs and on other areas in the body. The riskiness of getting TB is that there is a high death rate in patients.
The date for the World Tuberculosis Day first marks on 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced the discovery of the bacterium that causes Tuberculosis, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease. From 1997 onwards, the World Health Organization releases a Tuberculosis Report which assesses TB and the progress of the responses to TB global region wise as well as country wise.
According to this report, “Status of the TB epidemic globally, an estimated 10.0 million (range, 9.0–11.1 million) 2 people fell ill with TB in 2018, a number that has been relatively stable in recent years. The burden of disease varies enormously among countries, from fewer than five to more than 500 new cases per 100 000 population per year, with the global average being around 130. There were an estimated 1.2million (range, 1.1–1.3 million) TB deaths among HIV-negative people in 2018 (a 27% reduction from 1.7 million in 2000), and an additional 251 000 deaths (range, 223 000–281 000)3 among HIV positive people (a 60% reduction from 620 000 in 2000).”
~Global Tuberculosis Report 2019.
The interesting fact is that 57% of men report the highest number of cases. This might be mainly occurred due to smoking. However, the records of cases and even death rates still exist globally with different fluctuations from year to year. In 2020, after a decade, it is said to have reported a high amount of deaths.
However, the World Tuberculosis Day 2022 is commemorated under the theme of “Invest to End TB. Save Lives “This year, the theme mainly inculcates around the idea of the necessity of investing resources to the goal of marking an end of TB. This has become very crucial since there is a priority that currently needs attention, COVID-19 which puts the attention to TB at risk. This day reminds the global leaders of the necessity on investing for TB patients around the world saving millions more lives and marking an end of TB.
