Tuberculosis on the rise in Southeast Asia due to Covid-19 disruptions in healthcare
- Disruptions to healthcare due to Covid-19 have erased years of progress in tackling the disease; TB is on the rise again with 1.5 million deaths in 2020 alone
- Two regions accounted for the biggest number of new cases: Southeast Asia recorded 43 per cent and Africa 25 per cent, according to the WHO
Tuberculosis (TB) may have been overtaken by Covid-19 as the world’s deadliest infectious disease, but it continues to defy vaccines and antibiotics to wreak a grim global toll.
TB was the world’s second-deadliest infectious disease after Covid-19 in 2020 (the latest year for which figures are available), accounting for 1.5 million deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Covid killed more than 1.8 million people that year, according to official figures. Before Covid emerged, TB had occupied the top spot, claiming more lives than HIV/Aids, which cost 680,000 lives in 2020 according to UNAIDS. TB is also a major cause of death among people living with HIV.
Disruptions in access to healthcare because of the Covid pandemic have erased years of progress toward tackling the curable disease. As a result TB is on the rise again globally, with the number of deaths rising by seven per cent in 2020.
TB is present on all five continents, but developing countries are disproportionately affected. In 2020, two regions accounted for the biggest number of new cases: Southeast Asia recorded 43 per cent of the new cases and Africa 25 per cent, according to the WHO.
Two-thirds of the cases were concentrated in eight countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa.
The infection has scourged the world since it emerged around 40,000 years ago, according to genetic studies. For a long time, scientists believed that tuberculosis in humans came from TB in cattle, and that it had been transmitted when livestock farming started in the Neolithic Age.
