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WHO: tuberculosis deaths increased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic

For the first time in more than a decade, deaths from tuberculosis increased in the world in 2020, a setback that experts have not hesitated to attribute to the COVID-19 pandemic due to the disruption of essential medical services and the diversion of resources. to address the crisis, particularly in poor countries where the first disease is more widespread.

According to the annual report on tuberculosis published by the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2020 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis, about 100,000 more than the previous year, and there are projections that deaths will continue to increase in 2021 and 2022.

Of those who died from tuberculosis, 214,000 were people with HIV.

“This report confirms our fears that the interruption of basic health services due to the pandemic could cause a path of years of progress against tuberculosis to be retraced,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

He argued that this finding should serve as a warning about the need to re-invest and continue innovating to close the gaps that persist in terms of diagnoses, treatments and care for millions of patients.

It is estimated that many people with tuberculosis were not diagnosed in 2020, which would explain why the official number of patients fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million last year.

In relation to this, the WHO estimates that in 2020 there were 4.1 million people with tuberculosis who were not diagnosed or their cases were not reported to national authorities.

The countries where the report of new cases fell the most were India, Indonesia, the Philippines and China.

The administration of preventive treatments also decreased, with 2.8 million beneficiaries in 2020 worldwide, 21% less than in 2019.

In addition, patients treated for resistant tuberculosis were 15% less last year and the WHO considers that in this category only one in three people receive the treatment they need.

All of this coincides with a reduction in funding for the fight against malaria, which fell to US $ 5.3 billion globally (US $ 400 million less) in 2020 and was less than half compared to US $ 13 billion. required to fully fund the malaria response.

The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), very active in the area of ​​tuberculosis, argued that the reduction in the detection of new cases is due to problems on the side of diagnostic services.

He denounced that in many countries tuberculosis diagnoses depend on the GeneXpert test, manufactured by the American company Cepheid, which received public investments of US $ 250 million to develop and supply this technology.

According to MSF, the company “is overcharging low- and middle-income countries for the test” and “refuses to report transparently on its production costs.”

“We ask Cepheid and other manufacturers of tuberculosis tests to help meet the test requirements by making them cheaper and adapted to the needs in the countries,” stressed the humanitarian organization.

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