COVID’s global fight for tuberculosis has receded for years, health experts say

As the world awaits the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, another tenacious pandemic, tuberculosis, is gaining new power and threatening millions of people around the world, health experts say. ..

The global fight against tuberculosis is undergoing a major setback due to low funding for tuberculosis detection and care programs and an increasing number of deaths from tuberculosis.

“The collapse of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in more than five years of progress in the fight against tuberculosis,” David Daudi, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told VOA.

Daudi’s assessment is reflected by the World Health Organization. “The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed many years of global progress in tackling tuberculosis for the first time in more than a decade,” said WHO spokesman Amna Smile Begovic.

Since 2000, the tuberculosis treatment program has saved more than 66 million lives and WHO will treat 40 million tuberculosis patients between 2018 and 2022, halving deaths in the 10 years to 2025. I was expecting.

Experts say that not only are these goals a few years ahead of schedule, but their achievement depends on when and how the world effectively ends the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The situation remains dark, according to monthly data from 90 countries,” Smile Begovic said. “Compared to 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, far fewer people have been diagnosed, treated or provided with TB prophylaxis, and there has been insufficient progress to fill the case detection gap. There is still a 13% shortage in the notification. Compared to before the pandemic. ”

Death from tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, which has existed in human society for about 9,000 years, is an aerial infection that spreads through coughing and sneezing, and according to the WHO, the pathogen is carried by an estimated 1.8 billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population.

In 2020, more than 1.5 million people died of tuberculosis, up from 1.4 million in the previous year.

A significant reduction in detection and care during the COVID-19 pandemic could add an additional 500,000 deaths to tuberculosis mortality, which “returns the world to tuberculosis levels 10 years ago.” I am concerned. Mortality rate in 2010 “.

The main reason for this is that many countries are directing most medical resources to deal with COVID-19 emergencies.

In the last two years, hospitals treating tuberculosis patients have turned to COVID-19 cases, and tuberculosis specialists who have also been converted to COVID-19 patients have been unable to follow up with tuberculosis patients, according to the TB Alliance, a non-government research institute. .. ..

“Unfortunately, despite being the world’s largest pandemic almost forever, COVID has taken over the number of deaths from infectious diseases over the last two years. Therefore, from a tuberculosis perspective, the number of deaths is. It is second only to COVID, “Tel Spigelman, president and CEO of TB Alliance, told VOA.

According to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking cases worldwide, COVID-19 has so far killed more than 6.16 million people worldwide and more than 982,000 in the United States alone.

Drop funds

Responses to COVID-19, especially the relatively rapid development of some highly effective vaccines, have been widely admired, but this approach has come at the expense of reducing funding for tuberculosis programs. rice field.

Diagnosis, treatment and research of tuberculosis costs about $ 13 billion annually, and even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s tuberculosis programs received less than half of that.

According to WHO figures, funding will drop to $ 5.3 billion in 2020, about $ 500 million less than in 2019.

Meanwhile, the government and other donors have spent more than $ 100 billion on the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.

While India, Indonesia, the Philippines and China have the highest burden of tuberculosis, the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States last year increased by 9.4% compared to 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a serious recession around the world, driving millions of already vulnerable people into poverty. According to experts, this creates an environment that encourages the resurgence of tuberculosis, which has historically been seen to increase during periods of war and widespread hunger.

“What we have learned from history is that tuberculosis will definitely get worse in situations such as war, hunger, and famine. Tuberculosis everywhere is tuberculosis everywhere,” Spiegelmann added.