WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the largest number of tuberculosis cases in a single year since the organization began monitoring the disease in 1995.
Over 8.2 million people worldwide were diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2023, passing COVID-19 as the most infectious disease of the year.
New diagnoses of tuberculosis patients were found largely in men, who made up 55% of the diagnoses. Of the remaining new diagnoses, 33% were women, and 12% were teenagers and children.
Countries such as India and Indonesia were affected the most at 26% and 10%, respectively.
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“The fact that [tuberculosis] still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it,” WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “WHO urges all countries to make good on the concrete commitments they have made to expand the use of those tools, and to end [tuberculosis].”
In 2022, 7.5 million people were reported to have been diagnosed with tuberculosis.