World Tuberculosis Day today

The World Tuberculosis (TB) Day-2022 is being observed in the country on Thursday like elsewhere in the globe to create awareness against the devastating health, social and economic consequences of TB disease and mobilize political and social commitments to eliminate this disease globally. 

This year’s TB Day theme is “Invest to End TB. Save Lives”.

World TB Day is observed every year on March 24 to create awareness and support world-wide efforts to eliminate tuberculosis.

This annual event commemorates the date in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that causes TB.

Marking the Day, National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP) of the Directorate General and Health Service (DGHS) have chalked out elaborate programmes to observe the day. 

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said global spending on TB diagnostics, treatments and prevention in 2020 was less than half of the global target of $13 billion annually by 2022. 

"TB remains one of the world's deadliest infectious killers. Each day, over 4,100 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease," it said. 

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted access to TB services, the WHO said, as it called for countries to restore pre-pandemic services, especially for children and adolescents. 

TB deaths increased in 2020 for the first time in more than a decade. 

Tuberculosis is caused by some bacteria that most often affects the lungs. Like Covid, it is transmitted via the air by infected people, for example by coughing.