Red lights flashing over TB threat

Deadly, drug-resistant tuberculosis – as lethal as Ebola and tough to treat in even the best hospitals – is a “blinking red” worldwide threat, the head of a global health fund has warned.

The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria is on a mission to eradicate the three epidemics and plans to spend around $12bn (R163bn) on it over the next three years.

“We should all be more worried about multidrug-resistant TB than we are.

“It gets nothing like the level of attention it should do,” Global Fund head Peter Sands said during a visit to New Delhi.

TB has become resistant to antimicrobials in an estimated 600,000 cases worldwide.

The disease “does not obey borders or need visas, nor pay attention to how wealthy you are.

“At the moment, about 25% of those 600,000 cases are being diagnosed and treated,” Sands said.

“If you look across the threats to global health security, this is one where the light should be blinking red.”

The UN has set the goal of eradicating Aids, malaria and TB epidemics by 2030.

“The blunt truth is that we are not on track for that ambition,” Sands said.

Sands said that despite his grave assessment of the risks ahead, significant progress had been made in the battle against the three epidemics.

The number of deaths caused by Aids and malaria had decreased by about half since the start of the century, he said.

TB – now the world’s deadliest infectious disease, killing about 1.3-million people each year (not including HIV co-infections) – caused 20% fewer deaths in 2016 than in 2000.

However, Sands said: “If you compare the trajectory in terms of new infections and deaths against what we need to do, we need to step up the fight.”

As health authorities slacken the pace, new variations of drug-resistant diseases are turning up, threatening progress already made and triggering a resurgence.