Commemorating World Tuberculosis Day 2015

Abstract

World Tuberculosis (TB) Day falls on March 24th each year, the day in 1882 when Professor Robert Koch announced his discovery of the microbial aetiology of TB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb). One hundred and thirty three years later, despite an effective cure available for the past half century, TB continues to plague humankind and remains one of the most common causes of death from an infectious disease worldwide. The latest WHO annual Global TB report estimates that in 2013, there were 9 million people who developed TB of which an estimated 1.2 million (14%) were people living with HIV. 1 An ominous increase is being seen globally in the number of new cases of Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB) and Extensively DrugResistant TB (XDR-TB) with an estimated 480,000 new cases of MDR-TB globally in 2013. 2 World TB Day 2015 gives us an opportunity to reflect on the trials and tribulations of global TB control efforts, and to raise public and political awareness that TB today remains a ‘global emergency’, is responsible for 1.5 million deaths each year globally, and that MDR-TB and XDR-TB in Europe, Asia and southern Africa are now major threats to global health security. To commemorate World TB Day on March 24 th 2015, we