Nigeria, seven countries accounted for two-thirds global TB burden in 2023, says WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Nigeria, with 4.6 percent of cases, and seven other countries, accounted for more than two-thirds of the global total tuberculosis (TB) burden.

The other countries are India (26%), Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), the Philippines (6.8%), Pakistan (6.3%), Bangladesh (3.5%) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (3.1%).

According to the WHO’s 2024 tuberculosis report, the global TB incidence rate (new cases per 100,000 population per year) is estimated to have increased by 4.6 percent between 2020 and 2023.

The report said this followed declines of about two percent per year between 2010 and 2020.

The report is based primarily on data gathered by WHO from national ministries of health in annual rounds of data collection.

“Geographically, most people who developed TB in 2023 were in the WHO regions of South-East Asia (45 per cent), Africa (24 per cent) and the Western Pacific (17 per cent), with smaller proportions in the Eastern Mediterranean (8.6 per cent), the Americas (3.2 per cent) and Europe (2.1 per cent),” the report reads.

“The 30 high TB burden countries accounted for 87 per cent of all estimated incident cases worldwide, with eight of these countries accounting for more than two thirds of the global total: India (26 per cent), Indonesia (10 per cent), China (6.8 per cent), the Philippines (6.8 per cent), Pakistan (6.3 per cent), Nigeria (4.6 per cent), Bangladesh (3.5 per cent) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.1 per cent).”

The report however added that Nigeria and 12 other countries were estimated to have achieved reductions of 50 percent or more between 2015 and 2023.

“As of September 2024, there were 13 countries actively interested in implementing a national TB prevalence survey: Bangladesh, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe,” the WHO said.

The organisation said by 2023, TB case notifications in most of the watchlist countries had returned to pre-COVID levels or beyond.

“The exceptions were Angola, Lesotho, Liberia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Thailand and Zimbabwe,” the report reads.

“The two countries that made the biggest contributions to the global rebound in the reported number of people newly diagnosed with TB in 2022 and 2023 were India and Indonesia.”