HomeThe World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 10 million (between 8.9 to 11.0 million) individuals had active TB disease worldwide in 2019. Males and females respectively accounted for around 5.6 and 3.2 million, with children accounting for a further 1.2 million.1 A total of 87% of these individuals were from high-TB-burden countries, including India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South Africa.
Overall improvement in general living conditions and population health, in conjunction with intensive efforts of the global Stop TB Strategy, have led to the annual number of individuals with active TB disease falling progressively since 2006. Globally, there was a cumulative reduction of 8.5% in TB incidence between 2015 and 2019: from 142 individuals with newly acquired active TB disease per 100,000 population in 2015 to 130 per 100,000 in 2019, which corresponds to an annual reduction rate of about 2.1%. The goal for the WHO End TB Strategy was for a cumulative reduction of 20% by 2020.
Worldwide, TB continues to be among the top 10 causes of death and the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, greater than that of HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) AIDS. In 2020, TB-related mortality was estimated at 1.4 million (1.2 million among individuals who were HIV-negative, and approximately 200,000 among individuals who were HIV-positive); while this corresponded to a 14% reduction in total deaths from 2015, it remains far short from the WHO target of reducing TB-related deaths by 35% by 2020.
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