Tuberculosis in South-East Asia Region
The WHO South-East Asia (SEA) Region is home to around one-fourth of the world’s population with more than 45% burden of annual TB incidence (new patients developing the TB disease). It is estimated that in 2022, more than 4.8 million people fell ill with TB and more than 600 000 died (excluding HIV+TB mortality) because of the disease which is more than half of global TB deaths. Treatment success for new and relapse TB cases was 88% (2021 cohort).
The Region also accounts for more than 38% of the estimated global incidence of MDR-/RR-TB patients. The estimated incidence of Rifampicin-resistant (RR) and multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is 170 000 in 2022. Of these, 82 000 lab confirmed cases were detected in 2022 and only 74 300* were enrolled on treatment.
Six of global high TB burden countries are in the SEA Region: Bangladesh, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand while for RR-/MDR-TB burden, Nepal replaces Thailand in the high-burden list for the Region.
The SE Asia Region has shown enormous political commitment towards ending TB. In 2023, a high-level ministerial meeting “Sustain, Accelerate and Innovate to End TB in the South-East Asia Region” was held at Gandhinagar, Gujarat with an aim of reinvigorating the political commitment. This high-level ministerial meeting led to “Gandhinagar Declaration”.
As a result of the commitment of the Member States, more than 3.5 million new TB patients were notified in 2022, highest ever number showing signs of recovery after COVID-19 related setbacks.
(For more information, please refer to the WHO Global TB Report 2023)
(*DR-TB data has been updated since the publication of the Global TB Report 2023)
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