The WHO South-East Asia (SEA) region, home to 26% of the global population and 43% of the TB incidence burden (WHO Global TB Report 2021). It is estimated that in 2020, nearly 4.3 million people contracted tuberculosis and 700,000 died (excluding HIV+TB mortality) due to this disease, which represents more than half of deaths due to tuberculosis worldwide, estimated at 1.3 million for the year. Deaths from TB have shown an increasing trend for over a decade and are now very close to the levels seen in 2015. Treatment success for new TB cases and relapses was 85% (2019 cohort ).
Although WHO has not published estimates of the burden of rifampin-resistant (RR) and multidrug-resistant (MDR-TB) TB in its Global TB Report 2021, the report states that levels RR/MDR TB burden were similar. levels like the previous year. It is therefore assumed that the number of these cases was also around 170,000 for 2021, representing almost 37% of the global incidence. Of these, 64,970 were detected in 2020 (down from 86,623 in 2019) and only 58,181 were enrolled on treatment (down from 70,120) in the same year.
Six of the countries with a high global TB burden are in the SEA region: Bangladesh, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand, while for the TB burden RR/ MR, Nepal replaces Thailand in the list of high TB burden countries for the region. .
Learn how COVID-19-related service disruption will impact TB epidemiology in SEAR Member States
