India accounted for most number of Tuberculosis cases in 2024, followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, China, and Pakistan, said a recent report from the World Health Organisation. The international health body has called for increased funding to eradicate the disease.
According to the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2025, most people who developed TB in 2024 were in the WHO regions of South-East Asia (34 per cent), the Western Pacific (27 per cent) and Africa (25 per cent), with smaller proportions in the Eastern Mediterranean (8.6 per cent), the Americas (3.3 per cent) and Europe (1.9 per cent).
87 per cent of all estimated incident cases worldwide were reported from the 30 high-TB burden countries, with eight of these countries accounting for two-thirds (67 per cent) of the global total, the report said. The top five countries accounted for 55 per cent of the global total, it said.
The global health body observed Tuberculosis remains a major global public health problem, and progress in reducing the burden of disease falls far short of 2030 targets in most parts of the world, PTI reported.
"Money allocation for the TB response remains grossly inadequate and has been stagnating. Funding for the provision of TB prevention, diagnosis, and treatment amounted to $5.9 billion in 2024, and funding for TB research was $1.2 billion in 2023. These figures are 27 per cent and 24 per cent of the global targets of $22 billion and $5 billion annually by 2027," it said.
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Saying achieving the goal of ending Tuberculosis will need political commitment and domestic funding in high-TB burden countries, the report noted that funding remained far short in 2024 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which account for 99 per cent of fresh TB cases each year.
India also accounted for the highest number of people estimated to have developed Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) MD and Rifampicin-resistant TB at 32 per cent. "Four countries, including India, accounted for more than half of the global number of such patients. Of the remaining, China accounted for 7.1 per cent, the Philippines, 7.1 per cent and the Russian Federation, 6.7 per cent," it said.
"In 2024, 69 per cent of the global number of deaths caused by TB among HIV-negative people occurred in the WHO African and South-East Asia regions. India alone accounted for 28 per cent of deaths globally," the report added.
