World TB Day- March 24th 2019
The World TB Day 2019 theme is: It’s TIME ...
Background to World TB Day
World TB Day is held every year on March 24th with the aim of raising awareness about tuberculosis (TB) among health professionals and the public and to support global efforts to prevent and control TB. The day is an occasion to rally political and social commitment for further progress towards eliminating TB as a public health burden.
World TB Day commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the cause of TB, the TB bacillus. This was a major step in the understanding of the disease which killed millions of people throughout Europe and the rest of the world at that time. Although great strides have been made in the prevention and control of TB in recent years, TB remains the ninth leading cause of death globally. Each day nearly 4,500 people worldwide lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. Global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 54 million lives since 2000 and reduced the TB death rate by 42%. See World Health Organization, World TB Day 2019. The emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) poses a major health threat and could risk gains made in the fight against TB
In 2017, worldwide, 10 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.6 million died including 300,000 deaths among people with HIV. An estimated one million children became ill with TB of whom 230,000 died. Approximately 95% of TB cases and deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
To accelerate the TB response in countries towards TB elimination (defined as <1 notified TB case per million population per year), Heads of States met at the first ever United Nations High Level Meeting in New York in September 2018 and made strong commitments to end TB.
World TB Day 2019-the theme
This year’s World TB Day global theme “It’s time” applies to many aspects of TB prevention and control including:
It’s Time...
- ...for a world without TB
- ...to treat 40 million people affected by TB by 2022
- ...to know your TB status
- for the TB community to come together and unite towards eliminating TB
...and many more!
This theme is also in line with the political declaration of the UN high-level meeting on the fight against TB. The theme of that meeting was “United to end tuberculosis: an urgent global response to a global epidemic”.
This 2019 World TB Day theme will ensure the world is reminded of the commitments made at the UN General Assembly meeting last September. This theme places accent on the need to act on the commitments made by global leaders at this meeting as follows:
- Scale up the access to TB prevention and treatment
- Build accountability
- Ensure sufficient and sustainable financing for research
- Promote to end the stigma and discrimination associated with TB disease and
- Promote an equitable, rights-based and people-centred TB response.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a joint initiative with the Global fund and Stop TB Partnership entitled “Find. Treat. All. #EndTB”. The aim of this initiative is to hasten the TB response and ensure access to care in line with the WHO’s overall drive towards Universal Health Coverage.
This World TB Day, WHO calls on governments, affected communities, civil society organisations, health-care providers, and national/international partners to unite forces under the banner “Find. Treat. All. #EndTB” to ensure that no one is left behind in the prevention and control of TB.
Epidemiology of TB in Ireland
The incidence of TB in Ireland has been declining in the past decade. However, the number of notified TB cases increased slightly in 2018 compared to 2017. In 2018, 315 TB cases were notified to HPSC (crude incidence rate (CIR): 6.6 per 100,000) compared to 2017 when 307 cases of TB (crude incidence rate (CIR): 6.4 per 100,000) were notified. In the past decade, the number of cases of TB has decreased from 468 in 2008 to 315 in 2018. The CIR declined from 11.0 per 100,000 in 2008 to 6.6 per 100,000 in 2018.
In 2018, 44% of all TB cases notified were in Irish-born people (139 cases, CIR: 3.6 per 100,000). Foreign born cases accounted for 43.8% of all cases notified (138 cases, CIR: 17.0 per 100,000. Country of birth was unknown for 12% of cases. More information on TB in Ireland is available on the HPSC website.