World TB Day 2020: World Health Organization

Mar 23, 2020

Message of WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti

This year, the theme of World TB Day on 24 March is "It is time" because we all need to accelerate action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets to end TB epidemics by 2030.

In the African Region, new TB cases and deaths are declining. Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are recording some of the fastest declines in the world. Expanded coverage of antiretroviral therapy has led to fast declines in HIV/AIDS-related TB cases and deaths. In 2018, four out of five (80.2%) people with multidrugresistant or extremely drug-resistant TB were started on treatment.

Although the Region is making progress, we are not on track to achieve the 2030 SDG targets related to TB. There continues to be more new TB cases in the African Region, than in any other WHO region. Only one in two people with TB (56%) across the continent is on treatment. Fewer than one in three children (29%) living with someone with confirmed active TB is on preventive therapy. TB control budgets are chronically underfunded, and most countries do not have information on families facing catastrophic costs due to TB. This is needed to track progress towards the SDG targets.

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