TUBERCLOSIS
Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s leading infectious disease killers, preying on poor and marginalized communities. In 2019 alone an estimated 10 million people fell sick with the disease and 1.4 million people died. Uganda is one of the 30 WHO-designated countries with a high burden of TB/HIV. In 2019, the estimated incidence rate for TB was 200 per 100,000 population and the mortality rate was 35 per 100,000 population [1]. In 2019, 65,897 TB cases were notified. In the same year, the WHO estimated that 1% of new cases and 12% of previously treated cases were MDR/RR-TB cases. In 2017, MDR/RR-TB treatment was initiated in 384 patients, of which 74% were successfully treated.
With a partnership, The Global Fund is working with the government of Uganda to Stop TB. These partnerships with the WHO has found more “missing” people with TB – people who go undiagnosed, untreated, and unreported, and could die or continue to spread the disease to others without treatment. Over one million additional cases were notified by the end of 2019.
While COVID-19 surpassed TB as the world’s leading infectious disease killer in 2020, TB – another airborne disease that was once a global pandemic – remains the second biggest, with more than 1.4 million people dying of the disease in 2019 (including HIV-positive people).
