<p>The tuberculosis epidemic is larger than previously thought, infecting 10.4 million people last year, while research into vaccines and cures is "severely underfunded," the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned today.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Across the planet, 1.8 million people died of TB last year, 300,000 more than a year earlier, according to the WHO's Global TB Report 2016.<br /><br />Two out of five people who fell sick with the disease -- caused by a bacteria that infects the lungs and makes people cough up blood -- went undiagnosed and untreated.<br /><br />Nearly half a million people were diagnosed with multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).<br />"WHO's annual look at the global state of tuberculosis this year makes for a shockingly bad report card," said a statement from Doctors Without Borders.<br /><br />"The WHO Global TB Report is a wake-up call to break the status quo in how TB, and its drug-resistant forms, are being diagnosed and treated."<br /><br />According to the report, the size of the epidemic rose largely because researchers realized that earlier estimates in India from 2000-2015 were too low.<br /><br />Six countries accounted for 60 per cent of the new cases: India, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.<br /><br />Despite the year-on-year jump from 2014-2015, looking back over the past 15 years, the number of TB deaths fell by 22 per cent, said the report.<br /><br />Still, TB remained one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide last year.<br /><br />And while the overall rate of TB worldwide is falling, the pace is not fast enough, the WHO report warned.<br /><br />"Worldwide, the rate of decline in TB incidence remained at only 1.5 per cent from 2014 to 2015," it said.<br /><br />"This needs to accelerate to a four to five percent annual decline by 2020 to reach the first milestones of the End TB Strategy."<br /><br />The goal aims for a 35 per cent reduction in the absolute number of TB deaths and a 20 percent reduction in the TB incidence rate by 2020, compared with levels in 2015.<br /><br />Cash shortages are also a persistent problem.<br /><br />"Funding during the decade 2005-2014 never exceeded $0.7 billion per year," said the report.<br /><br />The amount of money being spent on research and development for TB treatments needs to be at least $2 billion per year, it added. <br /></p>
<p>The tuberculosis epidemic is larger than previously thought, infecting 10.4 million people last year, while research into vaccines and cures is "severely underfunded," the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned today.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Across the planet, 1.8 million people died of TB last year, 300,000 more than a year earlier, according to the WHO's Global TB Report 2016.<br /><br />Two out of five people who fell sick with the disease -- caused by a bacteria that infects the lungs and makes people cough up blood -- went undiagnosed and untreated.<br /><br />Nearly half a million people were diagnosed with multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).<br />"WHO's annual look at the global state of tuberculosis this year makes for a shockingly bad report card," said a statement from Doctors Without Borders.<br /><br />"The WHO Global TB Report is a wake-up call to break the status quo in how TB, and its drug-resistant forms, are being diagnosed and treated."<br /><br />According to the report, the size of the epidemic rose largely because researchers realized that earlier estimates in India from 2000-2015 were too low.<br /><br />Six countries accounted for 60 per cent of the new cases: India, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.<br /><br />Despite the year-on-year jump from 2014-2015, looking back over the past 15 years, the number of TB deaths fell by 22 per cent, said the report.<br /><br />Still, TB remained one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide last year.<br /><br />And while the overall rate of TB worldwide is falling, the pace is not fast enough, the WHO report warned.<br /><br />"Worldwide, the rate of decline in TB incidence remained at only 1.5 per cent from 2014 to 2015," it said.<br /><br />"This needs to accelerate to a four to five percent annual decline by 2020 to reach the first milestones of the End TB Strategy."<br /><br />The goal aims for a 35 per cent reduction in the absolute number of TB deaths and a 20 percent reduction in the TB incidence rate by 2020, compared with levels in 2015.<br /><br />Cash shortages are also a persistent problem.<br /><br />"Funding during the decade 2005-2014 never exceeded $0.7 billion per year," said the report.<br /><br />The amount of money being spent on research and development for TB treatments needs to be at least $2 billion per year, it added. <br /></p>