World Tuberculosis Day 2021
The theme of World TB Day 2021 - ‘The Clock is Ticking’ –conveys the sense that the world is running out of time to act on the commitments to end TB made by global leaders. Each year, we commemorate World Tuberculosis Day on March 24 to raise public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of TB, and to step up efforts to end the global TB epidemic. The date marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease.
The majority of persons with the illness have latent TB infection and do not exhibit any symptoms. The bacteria can remain inactive for many years and the chance of developing active TB diminishes over time.
Persons with active TB have symptoms which include excessive coughing (sometimes with blood), chest pain, general weakness, lack of appetite, weight loss, swollen lymph glands, fever, chills, and night sweats. It can be misdiagnosed for bronchitis or pneumonia. If untreated, active TB can fatal.
Each day, nearly 4000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 28,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. Global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 63 million lives since the year 2000. Uganda is one of the 30 WHO-designated countries with a high burden of TB. In 2019, the estimated incidence rate for TB was 200 per 100,000 population and the mortality rate was 35 per 100,000 population. In 2019, 65,897 TB cases were notified. In the same year, the WHO estimated that 1% of new cases and 12% of previously treated cases were MDR/RR-TB cases. In 2017, MDR/RR-TB treatment was initiated in 384 patients, of which 74% were successfully treated.
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