Friday, November 14, 2025 -Tuberculosis has re-emerged as one of the most urgent public-health threats of the moment, killing an estimated 1.23 million people last year, according to new figures released by the World Health Organization.
The number is a stark warning: despite being a preventable and treatable disease, TB is outpacing the systems designed to control it. Health officials say the rise is being driven by a combination of drug-resistant strains, delayed diagnoses, and severe pressure on clinics still dealing with shortages of staff, equipment, and essential medications.
The burden is especially heavy in regions where medical infrastructure is already stretched thin. Clinics report patients waiting weeks for diagnostic tests, while many people with early symptoms are not screened at all. This delay is giving TB room to spread, often silently, through densely populated areas.
Even when patients are diagnosed, access to a full course of treatment is inconsistent—some countries face intermittent stockouts of first-line drugs, and second-line treatments for drug-resistant TB are significantly more expensive and harder to secure. WHO officials say this creates a dangerous cycle: incomplete or interrupted treatment fuels even stronger, more resistant strains.
But the report also makes it clear that the situation is not hopeless—just urgent. Health experts argue that rapid investment in screening programs, point-of-care diagnostics, and community-based treatment could curb the rise quickly if countries act now. Several new TB vaccines are moving through late-stage trials, and global partnerships are pushing for expanded funding to deploy them as soon as they prove effective.
The WHO is calling on governments to treat TB not as a lingering problem, but as a present-day emergency that demands immediate, coordinated action. Without bold intervention, officials warn the world could see even higher numbers in the year ahead—and a preventable disease will continue claiming lives at a scale no one can afford to ignore.
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