As per the 2014 statistical report released by the World Health organization (WHO), about 1.2 million deaths were caused by AIDS globally whereas the deaths accounted 1.5 million with tuberculosis infection. Officials are surprised to see the results that tuberculosis deaths now outnumber the AIDS death, despite of the fact that tuberculosis is curable disease. It has been reported that about 95% of deaths in developing countries are caused by tuberculosis infection with still many cases are left that are undiagnosed or are avoiding the treatment.

According to the WHO, the biggest challenge faced by patients with tuberculosis is lack of funding. Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said “The report shows that TB control has had a tremendous impact in terms of lives saved and patients cured”. There is vital need for the government to scale up the services and invest in research needed to treat the disease in order to protect the world from the life-threatening disease. Additional investment in the research will help in developing new treatment regimens and also new therapies for drug resistant tuberculosis.

The current treatment for the active tuberculosis infections requires a multi-drug regimen lasting six to nine months. Also, it takes between 20 and 30 months to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) infections, which caused 190,000 deaths in 2014. According to sources, effective diagnosis and treatment of the disease saved 43 million lives between 2000 and 2015. Also, officials found 47% drop in TB death rate between 1990 and 2015. All these improvements have been the part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which started in 2000.

Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme, said it is totally unacceptable to see about 4,400 people dying every day because of TB, especially in the era when appropriate cure is available for the disease.