World TB day is held every year on March 24th with the aim of raising awareness about TB among both health professionals and the public, and to support global efforts to prevent and control TB.
World TB day commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. This was a major step in the understanding of the disease which killed millions of people throughout Europe and the rest of the world at that time.
Although great strides have been made in the prevention and control of TB in recent years, TB remains one of the biggest infectious disease killers worldwide: in 2014, 9.6 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died, including 140,000 children1.
TB remains primarily a disease of poverty: more than 95% of cases of TB occur in the developing world as do the majority of deaths.
Drug resistance is also a major challenge. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 480,000 people have drug-resistant TB worldwide. Patients with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively-drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) face much longer treatment, take more drugs, suffer from more side effects and treatment costs are five times higher compared to those with drug-susceptible TB.
Theme of World TB Day
Each year a theme is chosen for World TB day. For 2016, the theme is “Unite to end TB”. The Stop TB partnership is using the symbol of a red arrow to represent the global solidarity to a world without TB.
The arrow represents the unwavering commitment to move forward with the mission until we reach the finish line to End TB.
The Global Plan to End TB 2016-2020
World TB Day coincides with the publishing of the Global Plan to End TB 2016-2020 by the Stop TB Partnership2. The plan is a roadmap to accelerating the end of the global TB epidemic and reaching the targets of the WHO End TB Strategy. The aim of the plan is to highlight the need to shift the paradigm from barely controlling the epidemic to ending it altogether. This plan includes chapters on the following aspects of improving TB prevention and control globally :
- The development of new diagnostics and of new drugs for the treatment of TB,
- Recommendations on improving the involvement of communities in the fight against TB,
- Ways of reaching target populations who are most at risk of contracting TB and
- Calls for providing universal health coverage so that diagnosis and treatment of TB is more accessible to those who most need it.
It calls for the integration of TB into poverty alleviation and social justice programmes.
Global Plan Targets
The Global Plan outlines a set of three new, ambitious targets – 90-(90)-90 – to aggressively scale up efforts to end TB. The 90-(90)-90 target aims to:
- Reach 90% of all people with TB and place all of them on appropriate therapy - first-line, second-line and preventive therapy as required
- Reach at least 90% of key populations - the most vulnerable, underserved, at-risk populations
- Achieve at least 90% treatment success rate for all people diagnosed with TB through affordable treatment services, adherence to complete and correct treatment, and social support.
These targets put the focus where it matters the most: on people with TB. Of the nearly 10 million individuals worldwide who get sick with TB each year, nearly four million people are consistently missed by health systems. They do not receive effective treatment and can infect up to 15 people among their children, families and community each year. Finding and treating all of them is essential if we are to bring about the unprecedented rate of decline in TB that has not been seen since the Second World War, but will be necessary to end the disease. For more information read Stop TB's The Global Plan to End TB - The Paradigm Shift
Epidemiology of TB in Ireland
The incidence of TB in Ireland has been declining, however more than 300 cases of TB were diagnosed in 2015. Over the last 10 years, the number of cases of TB decreased from 450 in 2005 to 318 cases in 2015 with the crude incidence declining from 10.6 /100,000 population in 2005 to 6.9/100,000 in 2015. In 2015, the incidence in foreign-born persons was 16.5/100,000, while in Irish-born it was 4.1/100,000. More information on TB in Ireland is available on the HPSC website.
Further information on TB worldwide:
Stop TB Partnership
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention USA. Click here and here
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Public Health England
World Health Organization: Europe - TB
World Health Organization: Health Topics - TB
Chantal Migone, Sarah Jackson, Joan O'Donnell, HPSC
References:
1. World Health Organization: Tuberculosis. Factsheet No 104. Available here.
2. The Stop TB Partnership: Global Plan to End TB 2016 – 2020. Available here. (Accessed 19th February 2016).
3. Health Protection Surveillance Centre. Tuberculosis. Available here. (Accessed 23rd February 2016)
