World Tuberculosis Day 24 March 2023
About World TB Day - Background
TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers. Each day, close to 4400 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. Global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 74 million lives since the year 2000. However, the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with conflicts across Europe, Africa and the Middle East and socioeconomic inequities, has reversed years of progress made in the fight to end TB, and placed an even heavier burden on those affected, especially the most vulnerable. In its latest Global Tuberculosis Report, WHO highlighted that for the first time in over a decade, estimated TB incidence and deaths have increased.
World TB Day 2023, with the theme 'Yes! We can end TB!', aims to inspire hope and encourage high-level leadership, increased investments, faster uptake of new WHO recommendations, adoption of innovations, accelerated action, and multisectoral collaboration to combat the TB epidemic. This year is critical, with opportunities to raise visibility and political commitment at the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting on TB. The spotlight of World TB Day will be on urging countries to ramp up progress in the lead-up to the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting on TB. WHO will also issue a call to action with partners urging Member States to accelerate the rollout of the new WHO-recommended shorter all-oral treatment regimens for drug-resistant TB. World TB Day is observed annually on March 24 to raise awareness about TB and efforts to end the global epidemic, marking the day in 1882 when the bacterium causing TB was discovered.
Ending TB requires concerted action by all sectors To provide
the right services, support and enabling safe environment in the right place, at the right time. TB is mainly concentrated in settings beset by poverty and other social and economic challenges and in the most vulnerable populations. Poverty, undernourishment, poor living and working conditions, among others, affect how people fall ill, develop TB and cope with the demands of treatment (including medical, financial and social), and influence the health outcomes they face. Thus, progress in combating TB and its drivers cannot be achieved by the health system alone and requires firm political commitment at the highest level, strong multisectoral collaboration (beyond health), and an effective accountability system
