LocationsStatement by UNDP Resident Representative Dr. Mohamed Abchir on commemorating World TB Day, 2025
Every 24 March, the world observes World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. This is our annual opportunity as global partners to raise awareness about this preventable and curable disease and our collective efforts to eradicate it. This year’s commemoration follows on the heels of the release of the 2024 Global Tuberculosis Report. That yearly publication revealed disturbing news that TB returned being the world’s leading infectious disease killer, following three years in which COVID-19 topped this list.
In 2023 alone, the latest year for which consolidated global data is available, 10.8 million people contracted the disease, up from 10.6 million people in 2022. Also, 400,000 people developed drug-resistant TB – a highly debilitating form of the disease that requires extensive, specialised care over many months, if not years. On a positive note, global efforts to combat TB have cumulatively saved 79 million lives since 2000. But clearly, our collective efforts to date to confront TB and to remove it as a public health threat by 2030 need to be significantly increased.
In South Sudan, efforts to combat TB by the UNDP – Global Fund partnership under the leadership of the Ministry of Health are yielding substantial results in case finding and treatment. All individuals that are notified for TB are put on treatment. To address the HIV/TB co-infection, TB cases are screened for HIV (and those found to be HIV+ are linked to ART), and PLHIV receive an annual TB screen.
In 2024 alone, 26,656 TB cases were registered and put on TB treatment. Within these, a total of 24,595 (92%) people were tested for HIV. Out of them, 2,233 people were found to be HIV-positive, and got enrolled on antiretroviral therapy. In terms of treatment success, 19,470 people were cured, and completed TB treatment out of the 22,930 TB cases that were registered in the previous year, representing 84.9% treatment success rate.
Every 24 March, the world observes World Tuberculosis (TB) Day to raise awareness about this preventable and curable disease and our collective efforts to eradicate it.
UNDP/South Sudan
Additional components of our successful response include decentralization of TB services in 180 health facilities, use of diagnostic testing tools such as the AI-powered digital x-ray technologies, GeneXpert machines, availability of TB drugs and lab consumables and use of community groups to stimulate demand and uptake of TB services. Under the partnership, health workers are given salary support incentives that aid them in providing TB, care and treatment services. Our support for the District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) and the South Sudan electronic TB register (eTBr) is also enabling data-informed decision-making on TB and HIV response.
More investments needed
The theme for the 2025 World TB Day, "Yes! We Can End TB: Commit, Invest, Deliver", inspires hope and calls for renewed action and commitment from all stakeholders to end TB, ensure equitable access to prevention, testing, treatment services and avert the growing risk of drug-resistant TB. The changing landscape for foreign assistance occasioned by funding cuts emphasizes the need for increased domestic investments in health by governments to minimize effects of the financial disruptions while continuing with critical care activities.
Leave no one behind
South Sudan has additional gaps and challenges that need to be addressed so as to achieve the goal of ending TB as a public health threat. These include gaps in diagnosis, case finding and below-capacity utilization of TB diagnostic tools. Others are food insecurity, malnutrition and climate shocks such as drought, flooding and displacement which increase the risk of new infections and impede treatment success.
Without proper nutrition, many people shun treatment, leading to drug-resistant TB and other opportunistic infections. Thus, counter TB efforts need to be complemented with measures to improve food security to avert malnutrition which is a major driver of TB infections. While we don’t have specific data for South Sudan, globally about 0.96 million incident cases of TB were attributable to undernutrition and there is no doubt that similar proportions are true.
More concerted effort is also needed to curb the HIV/AIDS and TB co-infection which exposes PLHIV to increased risks of contracting TB. In 2023 alone, 662,000 PLHIV got TB in Africa. Efforts are also needed to address the global shortages and supply chain disruptions associated with rifampicin – a crucial TB drug.
Together, we can move towards a world free of TB death and suffering with more investments, collaboration and integration of TB services.