Journée mondiale de lutte contre la tuberculose

World Tuberculosis (TB) Day serves as a vital occasion to raise awareness about the burden of TB worldwide and the status of TB prevention and care efforts. It is also an opportunity to further mobilize political and social commitment and encourage a multisectoral and whole-of-society approach to advance the efforts to end TB. Stronger commitment is crucial, particularly as the declining international funding for TB in the current geopolitical climate poses a significant challenge to achieving global targets to end TB by 2030. The observance of World TB Day emphasizes the urgent need for continued investment and collaborative action to eliminate this preventable disease.

Background

TB, drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) and TB/HIV co-infection continue to pose major public health threats and cause premature mortality in the WHO European Region. In 2023, 172 300 incidents of TB cases were reported in the Region, with 22 500 deaths. Though the Region accounts for only 2.1% of the global TB burden, it continues to be the most severely affected by DR-TB, and it is home to one fifth of the global number of MDR-TB cases (21%) and more than a third of pre-extensively DR-TB cases (37%).

Efforts to end TB

WHO aims to end TB at all levels. The Tuberculosis action plan for the WHO European Region 2023–2030 is the main guiding instrument for Member States to make progress in line with the global End TB Strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals (Target 3.3). It will ensure universal access to quality TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care.

Working in strong partnerships, WHO/Europe is assisting Member States in their national TB responses by facilitating the rapid uptake of new technologies, including diagnostics, regimens and vaccines, as well as new tools, interventions and strategies. This includes scaling up systematic screening for TB disease among contacts and high-risk and vulnerable populations, implementing new rapid TB diagnostics tests, and ensuring faster and more effective treatment regimens to make further progress in TB prevention and care. Additionally, boosting research efforts to develop new and more effective TB vaccines remains a key priority.  

Did you know?

In 1882, while using a new staining method, a German physician and scientist named Robert Koch applied it to the sputum specimen of TB patients and revealed for the first time the causal agent of the disease: Mycobacterium tuberculosis. He made his result public at the Berlin Physiological Society on 24 March 1882, in a famous lecture entitled “Über Tuberkulose”, which was published 3 weeks later. Since 1982, 24 March has been known as World TB Day.