SDC-Update: Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) kills about two million people each year, making it one of the world's leading infectious causes of death. Most of the people affected live in developing and transitional countries where TB causes serious economic losses to families and societies particularly among the poorest groups. Several poverty-related factors, including the link to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, have led to the resurgence of a serious global tuberculosis epidemic. Southeast Asia, with an estimated three million new cases of TB each year, is the world's hardest-hit region, in Eastern Europe, TB deaths are increasing after almost 40 years of steady decline whilst in Sub-Saharan Africa it is estimated that one and a half million TB cases occur per year.

Efficient control measures and treatment are available and the disease was thought to be under control towards the end of the last century. The increasing number of countries, which are implementing Stop TB, the six-point WHO strategy for detection and cure which builds on the successes of Directly Observed Treatment (DOTS), is encouraging. However, the treatment successes seen in many countries are threatened by an increased prevalence of multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics are closely interlinked with each disease spreading up the progression of the other. In particular TB is a killer of those infected with HIV.

In Tanzania, SDC has supported a particularly successful National TB Control Programme. In SDC’s partner countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the widespread emergence of multi-drug resistant TB, as well as the phenomenon of TB in prisons form the focus of the Swiss supported public health interventions.

According to the World Bank, Tuberculosis Control belongs to the most cost-effective public health interventions available and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has led to an increased investment in Tuberculosis control in recent years. Nonetheless, it has been estimated that there is still a gap of U$300 million a year to address the TB epidemic in low and middle-income countries.

Introduction by: SCIH, Swiss Tropical Institute (2008)