TB deaths spike for first time in 10 years

FORE the first time in more than a decade, the number of deaths from tuberculosis (TB) has increased, from 1.4 million deaths in 2019 to 1.5 million deaths in 2020, mainly due to the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on TB care.

This is according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2021 edition of its Global Tuberculosis Report, released yesterday, featuring data on TB trends and responses in 197 countries and areas.

According to the WHO, the number of people newly diagnosed with TB and reported to national governments dropped from 7.1 million in 2019 to only 5.8 million in 2020. The WHO said this alarming reduction in TB case detection and reporting reflects both supply and demand-side disruptions to TB testing services.

Humanitarian organisation, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said while additional suppliers are entering the market, many TB testing services in countries are still dependent on the GeneXpert TB tests supplied by Cepheid.

“This US-based diagnostics corporation has received over $250 million (R3.7 billion) in public investments in the last decade to develop and roll out the GeneXpert technology but has fallen short in providing returns to the public and is overcharging low- and middleincome countries for the tests. Despite multiple alarms from civil society around the world, Cepheid refuses to provide transparency on the cost of production and profit margins of tests for TB and Covid-19, amongst other diseases.”

MSF Access Campaign Diagnostics Adviser Stijn Deborggraeve said the figures were not acceptable.

“We cannot accept that year after year, up to 1.5 million people die from the curable disease TB because they do not have access to the diagnostics and drugs that can save their lives.

“With the alarming increase in TB deaths in 2020 due to the Covid19 pandemic, much more needs to be done to close the deadly testing gap and ensure that many more people with TB are diagnosed and treated. Yet access to diagnostic tests is still limited in many high TB burden countries because they depend on GeneXpert tests supplied by Cepheid, which remain too expensive.”

In addition to overcharging low- and middle-income countries, Cepheid recently decided to cancel the commercialisation of its newest GeneXpert technology, a batterypowered, robust and portable GeneXpert system called Omni, that was designed to overcome the shortcomings of the existing GeneXpert system for communitybased testing, MSF said.

“Cepheid’s recent decision to halt the launch of the GeneXpert Omni technology without any explanation or effort to mitigate the impact of the decision on the TB testing gap is outrageous. Cepheid received more than $86.5 million in public funding from the US government to develop the Omni technology to support community-based testing. Cepheid must be held accountable for the public investments made and for its commitments to people with TB. We need all technologies to fight TB and reduce the number of TB deaths urgently,” Deborggraeve said.

MSF teams are currently providing TB testing and treatment in 38 countries.