By MIRIAM ZIMBA –
March 24 each year is the date set aside to commemorate the World Tuberculosis (TB) Day.
It is used to monitor progress on achievements made in combating this communicable disease of global concern.
This year, the Global Fund partnership made an appeal to find, treat and cure all people with tuberculosis, and accelerate recent progress to end a disease that is entirely curable but kills 1.5 million people every year.
According to a statement made available to Times Health by the Global Fund, each year, at least 3 million people with TB go undiagnosed or don’t get effective treatment, and among those missed are the most vulnerable in society.
‘Even of greater concern, there are indications that the scope of TB could get dramatically worse, if emerging strains of drug resistance are not met,’ the statement reads.
A new report by the UK’s  All Party Parliamentary Group on Global TB estimates that 75 million people could lose their lives to multi drug-resistant TB over the next 35 years if current trends continue.
Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund, said in the statement that global efforts have managed to limit the spread of TB in recent years, through more effective diagnoses and treatment, but added that progress has however been slow.
Dr Dybul called for faster progress by focusing efforts on the most vulnerable and where the greatest impact can be achieved.
“We need to go where the infections are and reach those who are being left behind,” Dr. Dybul said during a visit to a TB clinic in the village of Cange, Haiti.
Among the three million who remain unreached are people who are most vulnerable to falling ill with TB, including the very poor, people living with HIV, women and children, migrants, prisoners, refugees, miners, the elderly, ethnic minorities, indigenous populations and drug users.
The Stop TB Partnership said that progress is unacceptably slow – with incidence falling at about 1.5 percent per year between 2000 and 2013.
Globally, the TB mortality rate fell by an estimated 45 percent between 1990 and 2013.
In 2013, an estimated 480,000 people developed multidrug-resistant TB, with extensively drug-resistant TB reported by 100 countries.