WHO: TB’s Toll Worse Than Thought

A new report from the World Health Organization finds that tuberculosis has infected hundreds of thousands more people around the world than was estimated a year ago.

Written byBob Grant

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Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bug that causes TBWIKIMEDIA, NIAIDTuberculosis (TB) is causing more infections and deaths the world over than previous estimates indicated, according to a new survey released by the World Health Organization (WHO) today (October 22). The WHO’s “Global Tuberculosis Report 2014” stated that in 2013 there were 9 million new cases of TB reported in the more than 200 countries that account for more than 99 percent of the world’s TB cases.

The number of reported cases this year is 400,000 more than the WHO estimated in last year’s report, but the increased numbers may indicate improvements in diagnosis and data reporting as well as unchecked spread of the disease. “There has been some real progress, particularly in Asia, but the overall situation remains catastrophic,” Richard Chaisson, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research in Baltimore, Maryland, told ScienceInsider. “Improvements in some countries are offset by disastrous situations in others, with MDR [multidrug-resistant] TB, HIV-related TB, and continued high rates of missed diagnoses and deaths. The situation in Africa is particularly horrific, with TB killing more young people than any other cause.”

TB kills hundreds of thousands of people every year—an estimated 1.5 million people ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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