The WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2025 has been released. The data run to the end of 2024, before large scale aid cuts took effect. The report shows that progress resumed after the COVID-19 setbacks, yet the world remains off track for the 2025 End TB milestones. In 2024 an estimated 1.23 million people died from TB, including 150,000 among people with HIV. TB remains one of the world’s top infectious killers.
At the same time, the number of people developing TB began to fall again for the first time since the pandemic. Incidence declined in every region except the Americas, where rates continued to rise. The report warns that the gains made in 2024 are now at risk because of major funding cuts affecting diagnostics, treatment, and prevention.
You will receive regional briefings from your respective Regional Manager in the coming days with further detail.
Actions for you as a parliamentarian
- Protect and increase domestic TB budgets to offset donor cuts and secure essential services.
- Mandate expanded use of WHO recommended rapid diagnostic tests (WRD) as the first test for all people with presumptive TB. The global goal is 100 percent WRD coverage by 2027.
- Close the detection gap through expanded testing and stronger case finding. In 2024 about 2.4 million people with TB were not diagnosed.
- Expand tuberculosis preventive treatment for household contacts and people living with HIV. Aim for 90 percent coverage by 2027.
- Accelerate roll-out of 6-month all-oral regimens for drug resistant TB and ensure uninterrupted access to medicines.
- Strengthen universal health coverage reforms that remove financial costs for patients. Commission reviews of catastrophic financial costs for TB-affected households and extend social protection where gaps persist.
- Strengthen multisectoral accountability processes. Table an annual TB progress session in parliament, request monthly notification dashboards, invite civil society and affected communities, and align with the WHO Multisectoral Accountability Framework for TB (MAF-TB).
Link: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/operational-guidance-adaptation-and-implementation-of-the-who-multisectoral-accountability-framework-to-end-tb
What the data say
- Deaths fell again last year yet the world remains far from the 75 percent mortality reduction target for 2025.
- Incidence declined again globally for the first time since the pandemic, but trends varied by region. Africa and Europe saw the largest net declines since 2015. The Americas saw rising incidence and recorded deaths above 2015 levels.
- WRD use reached 54 percent of all initial tests in 2024, up from 48 percent in 2023, but still below what is needed to close the detection gap.
- Treatment success for drug susceptible TB held steady at 88 percent. Success for drug resistant TB improved to 71 percent.
- Funding remains far below need. Investment in low and middle income countries stagnated at US$5.9 billion in 2024, against a requirement of US$22 billion a year by 2027. The progress made in 2024 is now at risk.
