Tuberculosis: deaths on the rise in Europe, WHO says

Tuberculosis is again becoming more deadly than with time. After two decades of continuous decline, the number of deaths from the disease in Europe is rising, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns on Friday.

According to the latest available data, 27,300 Europeans were killed by lung disease in 2021, up from 27,000 the previous year. With 4900 and 3600 deaths respectively, Russia and Ukraine are the most affected countries.

The WHO attributes the increase in these deaths to the weakening of Covid-19-related diagnoses during the lockdown, as well as the spread of tuberculosis resistant to the antibiotic indicated against the disease. “The increase in TB deaths that we are seeing in 2021 is most likely due to late or missed TB diagnosis due to disruption of services (…) during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the WHO explained.

The number of cases is on the rise worldwide

For the first time in twenty years, the downward trend has reversed, according to the WHO. In the 53 countries of the WHO European Area, which also covers Central Asia, 230,000 people have contracted TB, caused by a bacterium that mainly affects the lungs. This amount remains lower than in previous years.

In addition, the prevalence of drug-resistant TB has also increased significantly, with one in three cases of TB resistant to rifampicin in 2021.

Globally, as early as October 2022, WHO was concerned about the increase, again for the first time in more than twenty years, in new cases of tuberculosis in 2021. About 10.6 million people fell ill on the planet that year. .