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Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s deadliest communicable diseases.
Of the estimated 10 million people who developed TB in 2017, more than half (62 per cent) were in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions. More than 900,000 of these new TB cases were diagnosed in people living with HIV.
In 2017, the largest number of new TB cases occurred in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions, with 62% of new cases.
TB is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide. In 2017, 1.6 million people died from TB, including 0.3 million among people with HIV.
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases and poor treatment outcomes still needs to be addressed. In 2017, there were 558,000 cases of MDR-TB with 8.5 per cent of those cases being extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB).
While tuberculosis is treatable with a six-month course of antibiotics, in some countries the bacteria is becoming increasingly drug-resistant and is presenting major concerns among health workers.
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a form of TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to the two most powerful, first-line, anti-TB drugs.
Infectious diseases physician and Deputy Program Director, Health Security, Dr Suman Majumdar said, despite recent promising developments, the current available tools for TB diagnosis, treatment and prevention are not adequate to reach the goal of universal access to TB care and zero TB deaths.
“In the case of MDR-TB, patients living with this disease can no longer be ignored as untreated; this disease can kill and spread to others. Cure is possible, but current treatment involves an excruciating two-year ordeal of swallowing 20 pills a day and receiving a painful injection each day for more than eight months – the side-effects are terrible.
“Treatment needs to be coupled with close patient support and delivery of care close to their homes and livelihoods. We urgently need enhanced preventative measures, universal access to diagnostics (especially children) and a safer, shorter treatment for DR-TB.”
“What we do at Burnet is address major and complex global health issues and nothing is more in that realm than TB in terms of its burden and its impact on people, particularly its impact on the poor,” Dr Majumdar said.
“The response to TB at Burnet really deploys the unique skills that we have, from providing on-the-ground assistance and support, to training and building capacity, to conducting research which translates to inform policy, and working with partnerships at global and national level to drive an agenda of change.
“Unfortunately TB has been around since the beginning of human history and it’s still a devastating and important public health and development issue and disease.
“I’m pleased that Burnet is trying to address it, because it does need different thinking and different approaches.
“That’s something our team has been trying to bring, from care and delivery at individual level, to community level, to the national level, and also hopefully to the international and global stage as well.”
Burnet’s Dr Suman Majumdar is part of this initiative which aims to create closer connections between the broad range of policy makers, clinicians, patients, scientists and public health workers working for tuberculosis control and elimination in our region.
For more information visit the TB Forum website.
To achieve better health for vulnerable communities in Australia and internationally by accelerating the translation of research, discovery and evidence into sustainable health solutions.
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